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NEW LIGHT ON 
ANCIENT EGYPT 






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THE COVER OF ONE OF THE BIG COFFINS IN DAVIS'S TOMB. 



Frontispiece. 



NEW LIGHT ON 
ANCIENT EGYPT 






BY 

MASPERO 



^ 1? BY 



MEMBER OF THE INSTITUTE, PROFESSOR AT THE COLLEGE DE FRANCE, 
DIRECTOR-GENERAL OF THE SERVICE DES ANTIQUITÉS, CAIRO 



TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH 
BY 

ELIZABETH LEE 



NEW YORK 
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 



Mal A, 



First Edition, 1908 
Second Edition, 1909 



I 



[ All rights reserved] 



AUTHOR'S NOTE 

I have been trying for about fifteen years to bring 
a science supposed to be only comprehensible to ex- 
perts within the reach of ordinary men, and it would 
be gratifying to find that I have not wasted my time, 
and that through my efforts, some portion of the 
general public have become interested in it. I have 
drawn my material from everything that can be dis- 
cussed with educated people without demanding any- 
thing more than a little attention : excavations, religion, 
travels, popular customs, literature, history, have each 
and all furnished me with subjects. The result is a 
11 living picture " of the researches made in the domain 
of Egyptology during a period of fifteen years. I have 
faithfully stated the opinions of others, and have more 
freely expressed my own opinions than I imagined I 
had, before re-reading the sheets. Recent discoveries 
have proved some of them to be true, others are still 
doubtful. In the groundwork of the essays, however, I 
have made no changes, beyond a few modifications in 
the style and manner of expression. 



NOTE ON THE SPELLING OF THE 
EGYPTIAN NAMES 

( Written specially for the English edition) 

The transcriptions of the Egyptian names in this volume differ so 
materially from those in general use in England that a word of 
explanation in regard to them seems advisable. For such barbarous 
pronunciations as Thoutmes, Ahmes, Râusormâ, I have substituted 
Thoutmôsis, Ahmôsis, Ousimarês, a vocalization nearer that of the 
ancient pronunciation. Some of the vowel sounds, 1 like those of the 
three names just quoted, are derived from the Greeks, or from the 
Egyptians of the Graeco- Roman period ; others are deduced by 
analogy with Greek transcriptions from forms the exact transliteration 
of which has not been preserved for us by the ancients. The reader 
will easily recognize the former in those where I have kept the Greek 
or Latin terminations es, os, or us, is, ousj where those terminations are 
wanting, the form is deduced by analogy, or determined in accordance 
with the rules of grammar. Thus Amenôthês (Amenhotep), Khâmois 
(Kha-em-uas), Harmakhis (Hor-em-Khou) are pronunciations justified 
by the Greek renderings ; Amenemhaît ( Amenemhat), Hatshopsouîtou 
(Hatasou, Hashepsou) are grammatical deductions. Many points are 
still doubtful, and some of the vowel sounds will have to be modified 
in the future ; but they have at least the merit of testifying to an effort 
towards the truth, and of undeceiving the public who, on the faith of 
the Egyptologists, accept as legitimate, pronunciations which would 
have been considered monstrous by the Egyptians themselves. 

An error is easily corrected when it first arises, but if it is allowed 
to persist it is an exceedingly difficult matter to eradicate it. No 
better proof can be given than the persistence of the form Hatasou for 
the name of the great queen who shared the throne of the Pharaohs 
with Thoutmôsis III. For the sake of uniformity, I have adopted the 
orthography and vocalization of the Grasco-Roman period, in the same 
way as in France we use the French forms, Clovis, Clotaire, Thierry, 
for the Merovingian kings in order not to introduce very dissimilar 
words into our history books. We must, however, remember that the 
vocalization and pronunciation of names do not remain unchanged 

1 They should be pronounced as in French. 



viii NOTE 

during the course of history. Not to mention dialect forms which 
would be too difficult to determine, I established a long while ago, 
partly by means of the Assyrian transcriptions, that many names of 
which the tonic syllable is vocalized in <2, ou, in the Greek period, have 
the same syllable vocalized in a under the second Theban empire, in 
the vernacular of the age of the Ramses : the Amenothes, i. e. the 
Amenhotpe of Manethon is Amanhatpe in the inscriptions of El- 
Amarna. The recent discovery of Hittite archives confirms that 
fact, for they give among others, for the Ramses Meiamoun Ousimares 
of the Ptolemaic age, a Ouashmarîya Riamâsha Maiamânou, which 
corresponds with an Egyptian pronunciation Ouasimarîya Riamasa(ou) 
Maiamânou. But I did not think it advisable to introduce those 
variants into a book intended for the general public. 



CONTENTS 



I. THE DIPLOMATIC ARCHIVES OF EL-AMARNA IN 
THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY B.C. — SUSA AND 

THE DIEULAFOYS I 

II. THE OLDEST KNOWN EXPLORERS OF THE AFRICAN 

DESERT 12 

^ III. THE TOMBS OF THEBES 22 

IV. NAVILLE AND BUBASTIS 33 

V. SYRIA FROM THE EIGHTEENTH TO THE FOUR- 
TEENTH CENTURY B.C. AS IT APPEARS IN THE 

EGYPTIAN MONUMENTS 42 

VI. EGYPT AND THE ELEUSINIAN MYSTERIES . . 53 

VII. A FORGOTTEN CAPITAL OF PHARAONIC EGYPT . 63 

VIII. THE TEMPLE OF DEÎR EL-BAHARÎ . . . 75 
IX. A TRILINGUAL INSCRIPTION IN PRAISE OF C. 

CORNELIUS GALLUS, PREFECT OF EGYPT . . 84 
X. ON AN EGYPTIAN MONUMENT CONTAINING THE 

NAME OF ISRAEL 9 1 

xi. coPTos 97 

XII. THE TOMB OF ANTINOUS AT ROME . . . 103 

XIII. A PHILOSOPHICAL DIALOGUE BETWEEN AN EGYPTIAN 

AND HIS SOUL 109 

XIV. AN EGYPTIAN BOOK OF MAGIC OF THE FIRST 

CENTURY A.D . . Il6 

XV. ARCHAIC EGYPT 122 

XVI. EGYPTIAN BELIEF IN LUCKY AND UNLUCKY DAYS 1 28 

XVII. THE EGYPTIAN 'BOOK OF THE DEAD' . . 1 37 

XVIII. EGYPTIAN ANIMATED STATUES .... 144 

ix 



CONTENTS 



XIX. WHAT THE EGYPTIANS SCRIBBLED ON THEIR 

WALLS 150 

XX. EGYPTIAN LOVE POETRY 157 

XXI. CAN THE PRONUNCIATION OF THE HIEROGLYPHIC 

INSCRIPTIONS BE DISCOVERED? . . 1 63 
XXII. CONCERNING A RECENTLY DISCOVERED FRAG- 
MENT OF A COPTIC NOVEL . . . 1 69 

XXIII. AN ANCIENT EGYPTIAN PROVINCIAL TOWN . 1 76 

XXIV. A NEW EGYPTIAN TALE 1 82 

XXV. HOW AN EGYPTIAN STATESMAN BECAME A GOD 1 89 

XXVI. EGYPTIAN FORMULAS FOR THE PROTECTION OF 

CHILDREN 196 

XXVII. CONCERNING A FRAGMENT OF OLD EGYPTIAN 

ANNALS 203 

XXVIII. MUMMIES OF ANIMALS IN ANCIENT EGYPT . 208 

XXIX. THE FORTUNE OF AN EGYPTIAN GOD THREE 

THOUSAND YEARS AGO . . . 215 

XXX. THE PALACE OF AN EGYPTIAN PHARAOH AT 

THEBES 221 

XXXI. AN EGYPTIAN BOOK OF PROPHECIES . . 228 

XXXII. THE EGYPTIAN ORIGIN OF THE ATTIC DIONYSUS 234 

XXXIII. A NEW TOMB IN THE VALLEY OF THE THEBAN 

KINGS 24T 

XXXIV. THE OASIS OF AMMON . . . . 248 
XXXV. ON THE REPRODUCTION OF EGYPTIAN BAS- 
RELIEFS .... . 254 

XXXVI. THE TREASURE OF TOUKH-EL-GARMOUS . . 2ÔO 

XXXVII. A NEW TREATISE ON EGYPTIAN MEDICINE . 266 

XXXVIII. THE COW OF DEÎR EL-BAHARI . . . 272 

XXXIX. THE TEMPLES OF THE SUN IN ARCHAIC EGYPT 278 

XL. CONCERNING A RECENT DISCOVERY OF EGYPTIAN 

GOLDSMITHS' WORK 284 

XLI. THE TOMB OF QUEEN TIYI . . . 29 1 

XLII. THE PURPOSE OF THE WOODEN TOYS FOUND 

IN EGYPTIAN TOMBS 299 

INDEX . . 307 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

The Cover of one of the big Coffins in Davis's Tomb Frontispiece 

Facing page 

The Audience- Chambers of the old Palace at Susa . „ „ 10 
The Site of the City of Elephantine, seen from 

Assouan „ „ 12 

The Pigmy Khnoumhotpou in the Museum at Cairo . „ „ 20 

One of the Walls in the Tomb of Nakhouîti . . „ „ 28 

The Site of the Temple of Bastît at Bubastis during 

Naville's excavations „ „ 34 

Pharaoh Thoutmôsis 1 1 1, from a Statue in the Museum 

at Cairo „ „ 50 

The Temple of Hatshopsouîtou at Deîr El-Baharî after 

Naville's excavations „ „ 74 

The Name of Israel on the triumphal Stela of 

Menephtah „ „ 92 

King Sanuosrît (Usertesen) I bringing the Oar and 

Rudder to Mînu of Coptos „ „ 98 

The Barberini Obelisk raised by Hadrian for Antinous „ „ 102 

The so-called Palette of Narmer, a Monument of 

Archaic Egypt „ „ 122 

The god Khonsou. Head of a Statue found in the 

Temple of Khonsou at Karnak . . . . „ „ 146 

A French graffito from Bonaparte's Army in Egypt . „ „ 150 

A Bas-relief from a provincial school of sculpture at 

Denderah „ „ 178 

Amenôthês, son of Paapis, a Statue from Karnak in 

the Cairo Museum u „ 188 

xi 



Xll 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



Amenôthês' Oracle in the Temple of Phtah at Karnak Facing page 192 

One of the faces of the Palermo Stone, a fragment 
of the Egyptian Annals 

The Mummy of a Hawk in its Coffin .... 



One of the Chairs in Davis's Tomb, with its Cushion 
A Girl's Chariot in Davis's Tomb .... 
A Bas-relief in the Tomb of Kemnikaî at Sakkarah . 

A Silver Bowl and a Rhyton from the find of Toukh- 

el-Garmous 

A Gold Bracelet from the find of Toukh-el-Garmous 
The Shrine and Cow in situ at Deîr El-Baharî . 
The Shrine and Cow in the Museum at Cairo . 

The Temple of the Sun at Abousir, from Borchardt's 
Restoration 

Queen Tîyi 



204 
208 
242 
246 
258 

260 
262 
272 
276 

278 
294 



NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT 
EGYPT 



THE DIPLOMATIC ARCHIVES OF EL-AMARNA IN THE FOUR- 
TEENTH CENTURY B.C. — SUSA AND THE DIEULAFOYS 

About the end of the fourteenth century b.c. the 
relations of Egypt with foreign powers were regulated 
by officials attached to the house of Pharaoh who always 
accompanied the king in his travels. Some of them are 
to be seen in the paintings in the Theban tombs, where 
they appear as dignified, solemn personages, with the 
large wigs and the long pleated white linen cloaks worn 
by people of importance. They introduced the Syrian 
or Kushite ambassadors, and if the strangers were not 
already acquainted with the etiquette proper to the 
audience, instructed them how to cover their faces with 
their hands in the presence of the king, to show their 
dread of him by broken exclamations, to rub their noses 
against the ground, and to approach the foot of the 
throne on their knees. They interpreted the speeches 
made in foreign tongues, presented the gifts, and verified 
the credentials. They had under them secretaries to 
compose the protocols, interpreters and scribes for 
African and Asiatic languages, translators, clerks, and 
archivists. Big terra-cotta jars served for portfolios in 
which to keep dispatches; these were carried in the 



2 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

monarch's train by asses, or in a special boat, until, the 
business finished, they were consigned to the oblivion of 
a lumber-room. In 1887 the fellaheen, who act as guides 
to the ruins of El-Amarna, discovered several of these 
diplomatic jars in a corner of the palace of Amenôthês 
IV. They broke them, shared the contents, and sold 
them to the dealers in antiquities; three museums, those 
of Gizeh, London, and Berlin, possess nearly the whole 
find. MM. Abel and Winckler in Berlin, and Messrs. 
Bezold and Budge in London published a copy or fac- 
simile of the documents; M. Halévy turned into French 
as much as he could decipher. The lacunae are numer- 
ous, the language difficult, and the details of the 
negotiations often escape us; but the general sense 
comes out clearly enough in the parts we can read with 
certainty, and we can gather a distinct idea of the foreign 
policy of Egypt in those far-off days. 

The form and aspect are very curious. Imagine 
tablets of clay varying in thickness and shape between 
the size of a cuttle-fish bone and that of a small sponge- 
cake. The messenger who carried many of them ran 
the risk of literally sinking under the weight of the 
state affairs of Babylon and Memphis; the return 
journey was much pleasanter, for the Egyptians did not 
use such heavy material, and Pharaoh's reply was 
written on papyrus. The writing is a variety of the 
cuneiform. Chaldaean conquerors had often invaded 
Syria during the preceding centuries, and had imposed 
their civilization on it. The peoples living between 
Mount Taurus and the Egyptian frontiers had adopted 
the Babylonian system of weights and measures; they 
imitated Babylonian models in arts and in industries, 
and adopted Babylonian fashions in dress, ornaments 
and hair-dressing. Probably the Phoenicians already 
possessed their alphabet, the source of ours, but they 
reserved it for their private needs; in their communica- 



SUSA AND THE DIEULAFOYS 3 

tions with their neighbours or with their Egyptian 
suzerains they preferred cuneiform writing. And not 
only the Semitic-speaking states practised that cumber- 
some method of writing, the Asiatic tribes of the Taurus 
and the Middle Euphrates imitated it, and some of their 
letters have come down to us, but they have not yet 
found an interpreter. The dispatches in the current 
language are all addressed to two Pharaohs only, 
Amenôthês III and his son Amenôthês IV, and they 
seem to cover a period of from fifteen to twenty years. 
A few of them emanate from very exalted monarchs, 
kings of the Mitanni, kings of Alasia, kings of 
Nineveh or of Babylon, who address the King of 
Egypt as an equal, and, according to etiquette, call him 
brother. The larger number of his correspondents 
are of lower rank, sheikhs, emirs, governors of 
towns who recommend themselves to the kindness of 
''their lord, their god, their sun." The formulas 
gush forth from their stylets, and many of their mis- 
sives are merely strings of polite phrases in which no 
fact of importance is to be distinguished. They all 
make anxious inquiry about the master's health, and 
he expands in kind wishes for the ladies of the harem, 
the royal children, the nobles, the infantry, the cavalry, 
in fact for the whole nation. With such courteous 
people Pharaoh could not have been behindhand in com- 
pliments, but we do not know in what terms he couched 
them. His replies are still hidden, awaiting the blessed 
stroke of the pick-axe that shall restore them to the light 
of day. 

Women were often concerned in these diplomatic 
relations. The unlimited polygamy which then flour- 
ished played a large part in political combinations. 
Each sovereign possessed numerous sisters, daughters 
or nieces of whom he disposed at will, and however 
full his harem might be, he could always find a place 



4 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

for the stranger who brought him a new alliance. 
Every time an Egyptian army invaded Syria, its 
successes brought as many recruits to Pharaoh's harem 
as towns taken or petty kings subdued. The princesses 
were reckoned in the ransom of their fathers or brothers, 
and were a pledge for the loyalty of the family, but 
their position at court was somewhat precarious ; for one 
who was privileged to receive the title of queen, a 
hundred or more never advanced beyond the position 
of secondary wife or of mere concubine. The highest 
rank belonged to the daughters of the "solar" blood 
of Egypt, heirs like their brothers, and who often had 
rights superior to theirs over the crown; the strangers 
came afterwards, and only when Egyptians failed. 
The kings of Babylon or of the Mitanni, who knew the 
laws of the neighbouring countries, might be reluctant to 
accept for their daughters a servitude which humiliated 
them and their relatives, but the advantages of an 
alliance with Pharaoh were so considerable that in the 
end they overcame their repugnance, and one after the 
other sacrificed all the princesses at their disposal. 
They would have liked to receive in exchange, if not 
a daughter or a sister, at least a distant relative of 
their powerful ally. But Amenôthês III had the pride 
of his race, and replied to his brother of Babylon that 
" no Egyptian lady had ever been given to a foreign 
vassal." Once arrived at Thebes the Asiatics were lost 
to their own people; the doors of the women's apart- 
ments closed behind them, and no one ever knew 
what became of them. If a father or brother made 
inquiries, and if he demanded a guarantee of their 
existence, Pharaoh sometimes ordered that the ambas- 
sador charged with the inquiry should be admitted to 
the private part of the palace. The poor man was 
greatly embarrassed ; he was introduced to a lady, richly 
dressed, and with painted face, who declared herself to 






SUSA AND THE DIEULAFOYS 5 

be she whom he sought, but he had no means of prov- 
ing that she spoke the truth. The brides brought with 
them a train of servants, slaves, and scribes, a trousseau, 
furniture, jewels, and gold and silver treasure which 
assured their maintenance. It was the custom for the 
son-in-law to give his father-in-law a present in propor- 
tion to the value of the dowry, and he acquitted himself 
of this expensive obligation, but without enthusiasm. 
It was a case for endless recrimination ; whatever was 
paid him, the Syrian declared that it was not equivalent 
to his daughter. Sometimes he refused to accept the 
gift ; more often he claimed a supplement by grumbling 
letters, or he pointed out with zest the contrast between 
Egyptian parsimony and his own generosity. 

Side by side with the documents that reveal these 
little-known sides of the sovereign's private life, others 
show us the political situation in those parts of Syria 
that were under his influence. The Egyptians never 
possessed a regular empire in Asia, divided into pro- 
vinces, and administered by a governor directly 
appointed by them. They occupied a few scattered 
fortresses on the strategic routes, but the rest remained 
in the hands of the native nobles who had held them 
at the moment of the invasion. These surrendered 
after a short resistance, paid an annual tribute in 
precious metals or in the products of local industry, 
and undertook to fight the enemies of their suzerain 
whosoever they might be. With that exception they 
continued their former way of life, keeping their 
religion, their laws, their customs; they made alliances 
with or fought each other, they pillaged towns, laid 
waste fields, plundered caravans, and robbed or mur- 
dered Pharaoh's messengers. Pharaoh interfered in 
their affairs as little as possible, but they harassed him 
unceasingly with their grievances and recriminations. 

The El-Amarna find contains about fifty of these terra- 



6 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

cotta documents relating to a quarrel between Rib- 
Adda, a noble of Byblos, and a certain Abdashirta, 
into which other nobles of the Phoenician coast and 
of Ccelo-Syria were drawn. Both factions implored the 
unfortunate Amenôthês IV to intervene in their favour, 
and so we have now and again the two opposite versions 
of the same event. They mutually accuse each other of 
treason, of cheating, of murder; they beg the aid of 
troops, of ten, twenty, fifty archers, and imply that their 
adversary is openly or secretly in connivance with 
Pharaoh's enemies, preferably with the Khatis. The 
intrigues and disputes in this province offer a faithful 
picture of what was happening elsewhere. Fighting 
was going on from one end of the territory to the other, 
and peace no more reigned among the vassals of the 
king of Egypt than it did among the nobles of mediaeval 
France in the eleventh century. It is to be noted that 
a large number of the names mentioned in the Old 
Testament or by classical geographers are mentioned in 
these inscriptions, Tyre, Sidon, Berytes, Accho, Damas- 
cus, Gaza, even Jerusalem. I need scarcely emphasize 
what deep interest this authentic collection of letters 
written by inhabitants of Canaan more than a century 
before the entry of the Hebrews into the Promised Land 
possesses in relation to biblical criticism. 

All who have admired the archers of Susa in the 
Louvre will be glad to see them again in the coloured 
plates with which M. Dujardin has adorned M. Dieu- 
lafoy's work. 1 Never before have the cold and brilliant 
tones of enamelled brick been reproduced with such 
exactness and fidelity. Doubtless the impression of 
semi-latent life, which is felt in presence of the originals, 
is not felt in looking at the copies; no artifice, however 
perfect, could reproduce it. It is due to the incessant 

1 M. Dieulafoy : L Acropole de Suze, Paris, 1893. 



SUSA AND THE DIEULAFOYS 7 

play of light on the prominence of the reliefs, and to 
the thickness of the enamels; and the spectator con- 
tinually increases the illusion by the modifications of 
the light he himself unconsciously produces with each of 
his movements. When, however, the picture is looked 
at at one fixed point, the light does not shift; directly 
the light becomes still the appearance of life is lost. 

M. Dieulafoy has related elsewhere the adventures 
of the mission to which France owes the most beautiful 
works of ancient Persian civilization. He is now at- 
tempting to utilize the materials he has brought back, 
and by their means to reconstruct a history of the 
Susian acropolis. The Greeks regarded Susa as the 
perfect type of those Asiatic capitals by the side of 
which the cities of Hellas seemed insignificant villages. 
Its name alone awoke even in the most unimaginative 
minds an idea of almost superhuman grandeur and 
beauty : palaces panelled with cedar and gold, sup- 
ported on gigantic columns ; gardens as big as pro- 
vinces, in which the deer might be hunted for whole 
days without leaving the enclosure; mysterious temples 
in which the sacred fire was never extinguished; troops 
of women and of eunuchs; the Immortals with their 
priceless robes and weapons ; a horde of nobles, friends, 
relatives, and alone, apart from the crowd, the Great 
King, the king of kings, who, with his nod, could set 
the world in an uproar, and precipitate Asia upon 
divided Greece. The past might be guessed from what 
was seen in the present; its masters had always ruled 
over a powerful empire, the oldest known after Egypt 
and Babylon. The citadel was situated on a lofty 
mound of rubbish between two of the numerous arms 
which the Oulaï hollows out in the black earth. An 
amphitheatre of snow mountains was vaguely outlined 
behind it from east to north ; in the west the alluvial 
plains were spread out, and the view extended over fields, 



8 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

rivers, and woods as far as the marshes that divide 
Elam from Chaldaea. Whether the enemy descended 
from the tableland of Iran or came up from the 
shallows of the Euphrates, Susa could perceive his 
approach from afar, and had more time than was needed 
to prepare a warm welcome for him. 

M. Dieulafoy discovered only the ruins of the old 
fortress which fell under the blows of the Assyrians; 
but from them he has been able to make out almost 
the whole plan of the Persian fortress. He patiently 
followed the traces of the walls on the ground, he 
cleared away the rubbish from those portions which 
seemed to offer some interesting peculiarity of con- 
struction, and succeeded in reconstructing in imagina- 
tion the whole of the ramparts, towers, ditches, and 
gates which protected the king's palace. To have a 
subject so difficult as archaic fortification treated by an 
expert who combines technical knowledge with a true 
feeling for antiquity, is rare good fortune both for 
archaeologists and historians. M. Dieulafoy rapidly 
reviewed Egypt, Babylonia, Syria, and Assyria; he 
examined what each of the great oriental nations in- 
vented for attack and defence, and the conclusions to 
which this inquiry has led him must considerably 
modify current opinion. The Egyptian citadels are 
conceived for the most part on a plan of the simplest 
regularity. The reason is, I think, to do with the 
nature of the ground rather than with the engineers' 
lack of skill. The inundation which recurs almost on 
a fixed day, and transforms the cities into so many 
islands scattered unevenly over the surface of an im- 
mense lake, makes the approaches very difficult during 
several months of the year. It was an advantage for 
the inhabitants, but it imposed plans of severe simplicity. 
It was necessary that the water should flow along the 
walls without meeting any obstacle which should check 



SUSA AND THE DIEULAFOYS g 

its impetuosity. The slightest excrescence would have 
caused eddies likely to menace the solidity of the place ; 
the river would slowly but surely have worn away the 
ramparts, as it wears away the promontories which jut 
out beyond the line of the banks, and one fine day would 
have carried them away. Therefore the greater number 
of Egyptian citadels form a parallelogram of thick, com- 
pact, rectilineal walls, without towers or other excres- 
cences. The Chaldseans, who, like the Egyptians, in- 
habited lands subject to annual inundations, seem to 
have protected their towns in a similar manner. As 
far as we can tell up to the present time, they were 
regular enclosures of a sufficient thickness to resist the 
battering-ram and sapping, but almost smooth on the 
outer side> or furnished with towers that were little 
higher than the ramparts. To find fortifications of a 
more ingenious conception, and more in keeping with 
our customs, we must go to countries where the rivers 
do not overflow, to Canaan or to Assyria. 

M. Dieulafoy has very cleverly restored the aspect 
of the Ninevite and Babylonian citadels by consulting 
the pictures on the monuments; he then verified the 
results obtained on the ground itself, comparing them 
with certain facts with which the excavations at Susa 
had furnished him. The large Susian towns were sur- 
rounded with a triple fence, the arrangement of which 
singularly recalls the plans adopted by the Byzantine 
emperors at Constantinople. To attack them was a 
formidable enterprise, and needed much time, patience, 
and tenacity, many men and many engines of war. The 
walls were too high for scaling, and the engineers of 
that time were ignorant of the art of undermining the 
foundations; they had to demolish and pull down the 
ramparts by blows of the battering-ram, or by means 
of metal hooks, to break or burn the gates, and to carry 
on all their operations amid a hail of arrows, stones, 



io NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

and heavy beams. The contour of the building was 
wonderfully adapted to allow the defenders to kill as 
many of the enemy as possible; even when the breach 
was opened and the town occupied, all was not lost, 
for the keep offered them a safe shelter whence they 
could make a long resistance while waiting their deliver- 
ance by a succouring army. The fortresses of Susa, 
after braving the efforts of the Assyrians, defied those of 
the Greeks. Treason delivered them to Alexander, but 
none of the generals who attacked them during the 
wars which followed, succeeded in entering them by 
force, although the garrisons consisted of only a handful 
of men. Abandoned by the Parthians and the Sassa- 
nides, they were mere heaps of ruins when the Arabs 
invaded the country and converted it to Islamism. The 
millions of unbaked bricks of which they were built, 
decomposed by the sun and half liquefied by the rain, 
gradually became amalgamated, and form now a com- 
pact mass, which at first yields no trace of the work of 
human hands; only those who have prosecuted their 
researches under similar conditions will realize the 
patience and sagacity required to ascertain the thickness 
of the beds of brick, the direction of the face, the per- 
spective and intersection of the walls. 

Who does not remember the ingenious reconstruc- 
tions of the palaces in the Susian Acropolis by M. and 
Madame Dieulafoy at the French exhibition of 1889? In 
the book before me they fill several skilfully engraved 
plates. They were partly audience chambers in which 
the Great King deigned to reveal himself to the nobles 
of the court and to foreign ambassadors on days of 
solemn festival. The restoration is doubtful in more 
than one place, and further excavations may extract 
information from the earth which will give the problem 
a different aspect. But many points are established 
with sufficient certainty to enable us to judge from the 



SUS A AND THE DIEULAFOY S u 

work of M. Dieulafoy what Persian architecture was. 
There is only one type which properly belongs to it, 
that of crouching bulls, joined in couples by the middle 
of the body and surmounting the capitals of the columns ; 
the rest is borrowed from diverse peoples, from Assyria 
and Babylonia, from Egypt, from Asia Minor, from 
Greece. It must, however, be admitted that Persian 
architects understood how to construct grand and original 
buildings out of those differing elements. 

M. Dieulafoy has briefly indicated the sources, and 
his comparisons between the coloured bas-reliefs of 
Susa, and various Asiatic or Greek works of a semi- 
archaic style are most ingenious. Just as nobles and 
princes belonging to all the nations that Cyrus or 
Darius had conquered, were to be seen at the court, 
workmen and artists of every nationality crowded the 
scaffoldings; each worked in his own fashion, and 
derived something from or lent something to his neigh- 
bour, the Susian to the Egyptian, and he in his turn 
to the Greek or the Assyrian. The lotus of the Nile 
was associated with types of animals from the banks 
of the Euphrates, and the Immortals of the royal 
guard were draped like the figures on the Lycian reliefs. 
Persian art was as composite as the Persian Empire, 
and the loans that it made right and left had no more 
time to commingle into one harmonious whole than 
the various nationalities had to combine themselves into 
one people. 



II 

THE OLDEST KNOWN EXPLORERS OF THE 
AFRICAN DESERT 

The most ancient explorers of Africa have recently 
risen from their graves. They are Egyptians, who 
belong to one of the most powerful families of the 
country, to that of the lords of Assouan and Elephan- 
tine. They lived somewhere about the year 3500 b.c. 
— two or three centuries are of no consequence in deal- 
ing with dates in the history of ancient Eastern empires. 
I cannot say that these explorers penetrated far into the 
interior of the Dark Continent, but their expeditions 
were long, fatiguing, dangerous, profitable. They in- 
spired them with so much pride, and brought them so 
many good things, that "they desired to preserve their 
memory for posterity, and engraved the narrative in 
their tombs. In 1892 Schiaparelli copied and pub- 
lished the memoirs of one of them, named Hirkhouf. 3 
De Morgan and Bouriant discovered several others 2 in 
1893, equally as illustrious in their day, and as unknown 
in ours, as Hirkhouf. The inscriptions are mutilated 
in varying degrees, and what remains often serves only 
to make us regret what is lost; they prove, however, 
that the Egyptians who are always represented as home- 
keeping and hostile to travelling possessed active minds 
and a spirit of enterprise. 

1 E. Schiaparelli : " Una tomba egiziana inedita della VI a dinastia, 
con inscrizioni storiche e geografiche," Rome, 1 892. (Extract from the 
Memoirs of the Reale Accademia dei Lincei, Ser. 4% at Vol. x, Pt. 1.) 

2 Cf. De la frontière de Nubie à Kom-Ombo, 1893, pp. 143-599. 

12 



"J 

i 



1 



EXPLORERS OF THE AFRICAN DESERT 13 

Elephantine played the same part in ancient times 
as Assouan does in modern times; it was the most fre- 
quented commercial market of the Soudan. It filled a 
small portion of a little island, supported on several 
blocks of granite, which had been successively joined 
to each other by banks of sand, and over which the 
Nile had spread a thick covering of mud. Acacias, 
mulberry-trees, date-trees, and dôm-palms, either as 
hedges bordering the paths, or as a screen in front of 
the river, or in clumps in the middle of the fields, pro- 
vided shade. Half-a-dozen norias, arranged like a bat- 
tery along the river-banks, pumped up the water day 
and night, with their incessant, monotonous grinding 
noise. The inhabitants did not waste an inch of their 
narrow domain ; they managed to sow everywhere little 
patches of millet and barley, clover and vegetables. A 
few buffaloes and cows fed discreetly in the corners, 
innumerable chickens and pigeons roved around 
marauding. The ancient town was situated to the 
south, on a high granite plateau, out of the way of the 
inundation. The ruins are some 872 yards in extent, 
and are grouped round a ruined temple, the oldest parts 
of which do not go further back than the sixteenth 
century b.c. The town was surrounded by a high wall, 
and a conduit house built of dried bricks, situated on the 
south-east of a neighbouring island, allowed it to open 
or close the outlet of the cataract at will. On the east, 
but separated by a channel about 100 yards wide, stood 
Syene on the side of the hill, like a suburb of Elephan- 
tine. Marshy pasture land covered the actual site of 
Assouan, and there were gardens, vines which pro- 
duced a wine famous throughout the valley, and a forest 
of date-trees and acacias running northwards along the 
edge of the water. The bazaars and streets of the twin 
cities must have presented at that period quite an interest- 
ing variety of types and costumes : Nubians, Soudanese 



i 4 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

negroes, and perhaps Arabs, rubbed shoulders with 
Libyans and the Egyptians of the Delta. On the other 
side of the river, the left bank, vast cemeteries offered 
one asylum to the diverse races. The tombs of the 
princes occupied an irregular line on the side of the 
steep hill which dominates the entrance of the port. A 
roughly constructed flight of steps of unhewn stone led 
from the bank to the entrance of the hypogeum. The 
mummy, after slowly climbing the ascent on the shoul- 
ders of its bearers, paused for a moment on the platform 
at the door of the chapel. The decoration did not 
admit of much variety; it was almost entirely displayed 
on the outer side of the walls which enclose the bay, 
and which is distinctly seen from the streets of Elephan- 
tine. A long inscription covers the lintel and the up- 
rights, and the portrait of the dead man stands right 
and left, as if to guard safely his eternal home. 

Mekhou is the first of the nobles whose adventures 
are known to us. He lived under Pioupi II, who is the 
Pharaoh before the last of the Vlth Dynasty. 1 His 
cousin Hirkhouf made three successive journeys during 
the reign of Metesouphis I, Pioupi IPs predecessor. 
Metesouphis I was still quite young when he came to 
Elephantine in the fifth year of his reign. There the 
chief nomad races of the desert, the Ouaouaîtou, the 
Mazaîou, the people of Iritît, paid him homage, and 
their submission doubtless encouraged him to send an 
expedition into the district, as little visited then as it is 
to-day, that lies along the left bank of the Nile as far 
as Dêrr. His choice fell on Irouî, Hirkhouf 's father, and 
on Hirkhouf himself. " His Majesty sent me with my 
father, Irouî, to the land of Amami to open up the road 
to that country ; I accomplished it in seven months, and 
brought back all kinds of commodities, for which I was 

1 See inscription of Mekhou in J. de Morgan : De la frontière de 
V Egypt à Ko?n-Ombo, p. 147. 



EXPLORERS OF THE AFRICAN DESERT 15 

highly praised." 1 This was only, so to speak, a trial 
trip, in which he served his apprenticeship under his 
father's tuition. He soon set out again, and this time 
alone. " I set out by the Elephantine route; I travelled 
in the land of Iritît, then in the land of Mâkhir, then 
in Dar-risi, which belongs to Iritît, for the space of 
eight months ; I travelled there, and brought back great 
store of commodities of all kinds, such as had never 
before been brought into Egypt. I travelled through 
the territories of the Prince of Sitou, which belongs to 
the people of Iritît. I traversed those regions, a prowess 
accomplished by none of the chiefs of caravans who had 
gone before me to the land of Amami." 2 Returned 
home, the king did not allow him to remain long in- 
active. " His Majesty sent me a third time to the land 
of Amami; I left Elephantine by the road of the oasis, 
and found the Prince of Amami about to march 
towards the country of the Timihou, to make war on 
them, at the western corner of the sky. I accompanied 
him against the Timihou, and helped him to conquer 
them so thoroughly that he paid homage to all the gods 
of Pharaoh. I then won over the Prince of Amami, and 
traversed Amami from the country of Iritît to the bor- 
ders of Sitou. I found the Prince of Iritît, Sitou, and the 
people of Ouaouit living in peace. I travelled with 300 
asses laden with incense, ebony, ivory, rhinoceros skins, 
leopard skins, and all sorts of excellent commodities. " 3 
Egyptian soldiers escorted him, as well as auxiliaries 
from Amami, and the sheikhs of Iritît had to furnish 
him with asses, oxen, and the provisions needed to 
maintain the little army. When he reached the frontiers 
of Egypt, Pharaoh sent "the Lord Ouni to meet him 
with a boat laden with confectionery, good things, and 

1 Inscription of Hirkhouf, B, I. 4-5. 2 laid., B, I. 5-10. 
3 Ibid., B, I. 10-14, and C, I. 1-5. 



i6 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

beer" 1 to comfort him after the privations he had 
endured in the course of his travels. 

Hirkhouf cared nothing for oratorical developments; 
he said what he had to say, baldly, never suspecting 
that more could be desired of him than the names of the 
peoples among whom he travelled, and a brief list of the 
articles he brought back. His bare information must be 
supplemented by the testimony of more recent adven- 
turers acting under similar conditions. Like the Arab 
travellers of the Middle Ages, the Egyptians of the 
Ancient Empire traversed the world for the sake of 
trade; they set out on their discoveries with a pack of 
trumpery wares, and returned from them with bales of 
valuable merchandise. It will perhaps be asked why the 
rulers of Elephantine, who had considerable troops at 
their disposal, did not resort to brute force to cut a way 
through the Nubian tribes. They did not hesitate on 
occasion to send bands of soldiers to the right or left of 
the Valley of the Nile, to the Red Sea, or to the oases 
of the Libyan desert ; indeed, their incursions into those 
regions brought them oxen, slaves, wood, coal, a few 
ounces of gold, a few packets of amethysts, or of green 
felspar, used for jewellery; they always gained some- 
thing thereby, and the royal treasury disdained no con- 
tribution, however small. But their armies never went 
very far; directly they desired to carry their depreda- 
tions to any great distance, the Nubian mountains 
stopped their foot soldiers, and the rapids of the second 
cataract offered an almost insuperable obstacle to their 
boats. They were obliged to lay down their arms, and 
to become perforce peaceful traders ; their caravans could 
then traverse in safety routes from which their soldiers 
would not have escaped unharmed. And Hirkhouf, or 
Mekhou, had to act by the king's decree. The objects 
chosen for barter were those that had most value in 
1 Inscription of Hirkhouf, C, I. 8-9. 



EXPLORERS OF THE AFRICAN DESERT 17 

small compass and were of light weight : small glass 
wares, jewellery, coarse cutlery, strong perfumes, gaudy 
stuffs which, fifty centuries later, still have charm for 
the natives of Africa. They paid for these costly 
treasures in gold dust or bullion, ostrich feathers, lion 
or leopard skins, elephants' teeth, cowries, blocks of 
ebony wood, incense, myrrh, gum arabic. Monkeys, 
especially baboons, were greatly esteemed in Egypt. 
They amused the nobles who chained them to their 
chairs on days of solemn festival ; the traders willingly 
undertook to try and bring them back alive. The way 
was exhausting, the journey interminable ; the asses, the 
sole beasts of burden possessed or used in those regions, 
could only manage short stages, and it took many months 
to cover distances that a caravan of camels accomplishes 
in a few weeks. The routes they chose were those in which 
wells or springs occur at not too distant intervals, and 
the necessity of often watering the asses, and the impos- 
sibility of carrying a large provision of water, compelled 
the explorer to take tortuous or complicated routes. It 
is thus easy to understand that Hirkhouf and his con- 
temporaries did not penetrate very far into the mystery of 
Africa. The countries that they were so proud of having 
visited were not so very distant from Egypt, Amami 
and Iritît in the desert, south-west of Elephantine, be- 
tween the first and second cataract ; the Timihou, situated 
towards the western corner of the sky, were the Berbers 
who peopled the oases. In short, the nobles of Elephan- 
tine exerted themselves under the Pharaohs of the Vlth 
Dynasty to discover Nubia and the Libyan desert. 

The knowledge gained was scarcely more than the 
names of races, mingled with marvellous tales or mytho- 
logical legends. The Nile had its source in a divine 
river which enveloped the sky, and on which the Boat 
of the Sun continually sailed, the river-ocean of Greek 
tradition ; having reached the southern regions of the 



i8 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

firmament, an arm was detached, and fell on the earth 
in a tumultuous cascade. The point where it touched 
our world was first placed at the first cataract, and then, 
as geographical knowledge widened, it was put further 
south. It is obvious that its neighbourhood should be 
inhabited by special races, intermediary between men 
and gods. All the travellers who approached it drew 
attention to the existence of an Island of Doubles, where 
a serpent with a human voice reigned over the doubles 
of the dead, and of a land of Manes, the name of which 
sufficiently indicates its nature. The last of the coun- 
tries similar to Egypt was Pouanît, the land of gold and 
incense, which extended along the coast of the Red Sea. 
The traders who frequented it purchased objects or 
creatures hailing from the fabulous regions of the ex- 
treme south; what they sought most and found least 
was a particular kind of pygmy, whose name, Danga, 
curiously resembles that of several African tribes. The 
first Danga was brought into Egypt a little less than a 
century before Hirkhouf,under Pharaoh Assi, of the Vth 
Dynasty. The pygmy had been welcomed at court as a 
sort of buffoon, useful for charming away the sovereign's 
ennui by his savage cries and gestures, and, above all, 
by a sort of ballet that he performed alone admirably, 
called the Dance of the god. 1 The god whose dance he 
imitated was himself a dwarf, with a big head covered 
with long hair, a bearded face, and enormous limbs, 
and clothed in a leopard skin. He was named Bîsou, 
and came originally from the ports of Pouanît, early 
becoming naturalized in Egypt. Bîsou, both jovial and 
grim, both warrior and musician, expressed his varia- 
tions of temper in warlike mimicry with sword and 
shield, or in joyous movements to the tune of the little 

1 Inscription of Hirkhouf, D, I. 6-9. The Danga reminds us of the 
Satyrs who, according to Diodorus (I. 18), were brought to Osiris in 
Ethiopia, and whom he attached to his army. 



EXPLORERS OF THE AFRICAN DESERT 19 

triangular harp of the desert tribes, on which he 
accompanied himself. 

The Danga of the time of Assi had so greatly aston- 
ished the courtiers by his agility, that ever since they 
had tried to procure a similar buffoon ; but the species 
was rare, and years passed without any success in re- 
placing him. The admiration which he had inspired 
produced unexpected results. Souls, even those of the 
Pharaohs themselves, could not penetrate into the para- 
dise of Osiris except by crossing an arm of the sea which 
divided it from the land of the living. A magic ferry- 
boat undertook the service on certain days, but the ferry- 
man did not admit all and sundry of the would-be pas* 
sengers : they had to prove their right to embark, and 
to answer a hundred captious questions on transcendental 
theology before he consented to ferry them across. A 
prayer, doubtless composed a short while after the reign 
of Assi, when the memory of the Danga was still fresh, 
shows us the ferry-boat at its post awaiting the Manes. 
Suddenly a noise is heard among the gods and the souls 
on the bank; the Danga arrives, and he must be taken 
without delay to Pharaoh Osiris, who has sought him in 
vain until now, and who expects great pleasure from his 
dancing. The ferryman immediately loses his head, 
takes on board the soul which gives itself out to be the 
Danga, pilots it without asking a single question to the 
port of paradise, and puts it ashore at the steps leading 
to the tribunal of Osiris, where it will represent the 
qualities of the Danga it so cleverly usurped. 1 

The ideal thing for an Egyptian explorer entrusted 
with an official mission was to come across a Danga, 
and to transport it alive into Egypt. Hirkhouf was more 
fortunate than many others; during his third journey 
he purchased one that the hazards of trade had brought 

1 Papi I, i. 400-404 ; Mirinrî i., 570-571 ; cf. Maspero : Études de 
Mythologie et d'Archéologie Egyptie7ines, Vol. ii, pp. 429-443. 



2o NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

to the land of Amami, and which came originally from 
the Land of Manes, The emotions of the court were 
greatly stirred at the good news, for Assi's Danga was 
the last that had been seen there, and the strange play- 
thing was only known by tradition. Metesouphis, who 
had sent Hirkhouf on his travels, had just died after a 
reign of ten years; he took his rest in one of the pyra- 
mids of Sakkarah, whence he was not to come forth 
until 1881, to exhibit himself to admiring tourists in one 
of the glass cases in the Boulak museum, and to show 
us "what the mummy of a king was like in 3500 b.c. 
His youngest brother, Pioupi II, succeeded him, when he 
was about twenty years old, and the joy with which he 
welcomed the messenger who announced the capture of 
the Danga may well be imagined. The council of minis- 
ters was assembled, the king dispatched a scroll in 
which he overwhelmed Hirkhouf with compliments, and 
ordered him to bring his prisoner without delay. The 
royal missive was later engraved in the tomb of the 
traveller opposite Elephantine ! Pioupi II wished to give 
his faithful subject a reward so that in times to come, 
when speaking of the great honours of which such or 
such a personage had been the recipient, it might still 
be said, "They did for him what his Majesty did for 
Hirkhouf when he returned from his travels in Amami 
with the Danga!" The pygmies were so wild, and fear 
of losing them so great, that the government itself 
formulated the precautions to be taken against their 
escape. " When he is with you in the boat, arrange 
to place watchful persons on each side of the boat, so that 
he may not fall into the water; arrange that watchful 
persons shall sleep at night with him in his bed, and 
that they shall be changed ten times each night." A 
boat of the royal fleet was put at Hirkhouf's disposal, 
and all the civil, military, and religious officials of the 
kingdom were ordered to furnish him with provisions 




The Pigmy Khnoumhotpou in the Museum at Cairo. 



EXPLORERS OF THE AFRICAN DESERT 21 

on his way. 1 The sands of Sakkarah, which preserved 
the mummy of Metesouphis for us, still hide, perhaps, 
that of the poor creature who so greatly amused his 
successor. The Cairo museum possesses the embalmed 
body of one of the favourite gazelles of Queen Moutem- 
haît; why should it not be enriched one day by that of 
the pygmy favourite of Pioupi II ? Nothing is lost in 
Egypt, and research there restores not only, as else- 
where, the narrative of events, but also the persons of 
those who took part in them ; both the materials and the 
heroes of history are disinterred from under the ruins. 

Expeditions like those of Hirkhouf were frequent, and 
produced more lasting results than 'the capture of a 
dancing pygmy, and a sovereign's favour for a traveller. 
The peoples frequented by the traders of Elephantine, 
through hearing of Egypt, its industry, its wealth, its 
armies, ended by conceiving for her an admiration some- 
what mingled with fear; they learned to consider her a 
superior power, and the Pharaoh a god whom no one 
dared resist. When, later, an army commanded by the 
Pharaoh himself came against them, they were prepared 
to submit ; once subdued, they rapidly adopted the man- 
ners, costume, religion, and language of their con- 
querors. The caravans of explorers did the pioneer 
work; the soldiers followed them, and formed the great 
Egypt which, stretching from Khartoum to the sea, 
ruled the eastern world for more than six centuries. 
We have seen the same order of events reproduced long 
after in neighbouring regions in the case of European 
travellers and traders. 

1 Inscription of Hirkhouf, D, I. 1-25. 



Ill 

THE TOMBS OF THEBES 

Tourists in Egypt who spend at Thebes the three or 
four days arranged by the promoters of rapid travel, see 
at least one of the tombs hollowed out in the hills on the 
left bank of the river. For this excursion the official 
itinerary allows three or four hours of an afternoon 
already well filled with an expedition through the Valley 
of the Kings, and a luncheon at Deîr El-Baharî. Usu- 
ally Hypogeum No. 33 is visited, that of Rakhmirîya, 
and if only the paintings could be distinguished it would 
be one of the most interesting; but unfortunately the 
lower records, the only ones sufficiently lighted by the 
flame of the candles or of the smoky torches, have been 
greatly damaged by the generations of fellaheen who 
turned these mortuary chapels into dwelling-rooms. 
Travellers come away with an impression of splashes 
of colour, spread, as it were, by chance, over dirty walls, 
diversified here and there by columns of damaged hiero- 
glyphics. The lamentable spectacle usually quenches 
their curiosity, and most of them refuse to enter the two 
or three other grottoes of a similar kind recommended 
to them by their dragoman. Those who persevere find 
elsewhere fresher tones, clearer pictures, and scenes 
more easily recognizable, but there are everywhere enor- 
mous lacunae which hinder them from imagining what 
a completely finished hypogeum was like, or from under- 
standing the decoration. In order to make it intelligible 
as a whole, it would be necessary to transcribe what 



THE TOMBS OF THEBES 23 

remains in each, and, putting the fragments together, to 
reconstruct, piece by piece, the three or four types of 
decoration most common in the immense necropolis. 
The work not only demands time, patience, and self- 
denial, but also resistance to fatigue and discouragement. 
The members of the Cairo Mission undertook the task, 
some with real enthusiasm, others with praiseworthy 
resignation ; the twenty odd tombs they have so far 
copied are published, and the enormous service rendered 
to science can be judged from this small sample. 1 

Every one wished to have a residence of his own in 
the hill of Thebes. The land of the dead, like the land 
of the living, belonged to the king and the gods, and 
a plot of ground there had to be acquired for money 
in the same way as the site of a garden, a meadow, or a 
corn-field. The king sometimes granted a well-situated 
plot to his servants. If he desired to reward one of 
them handsomely, he bestowed on him a slice of the hill, 
or had a chapel, corridors, a vault, indeed the whole 
dwelling required for a mummy, hewn out at his own 
expense. The inscriptions in such a case told how such 
a one received his sepulchre by the gracious command 
of Pharaoh, and that fact gave him a title of honour with 
posterity. The others applied to the gods, that is, to 
the temples, to negociate the purchase of an Eternal 
Home, and doubtless paid a high price. The ground 
procured, they had no need to trouble about the architect 
who should utilize it; it is almost certain that most of 
the syringes were prepared in advance and already 
hollowed out or even partly decorated at the time of 
purchase. The temples had companies of quarry-men, 
master-masons, designers, sculptors, painters who 
regularly worked for them, and whom they placed at the 

1 Memoirs published by the members of the French Arch ceologi cal 
Mission in Cairo : Vol. v, Tombeaux Thébaiens^ published by MM. 
Virey, Bénédite, Bouriant, Boussac, Maspero. 



2 4 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

disposal of their customers. The ordinary tombs were 
planned in one way at the same epoch : a straight façade 
cut out in the rock so as to allow of a little platform in 
front, a low door, sometimes entirely bare, sometimes 
flanked on either side by a figure representing the pro- 
prietor, and a few columns of hieroglyphics recording 
his titles; beyond, a narrow oblong chamber parallel to 
the façade; then, opposite the door, a corridor perpen- 
dicular to the chamber, or a second chamber terminated 
by a niche containing one or two statues, often sculp- 
tured in the rock itself. That was the exterior chapel 
where the relatives came to bring the votive offerings 
to their dead on days fixed by the ritual. It was closed 
by a wooden door, which offered slight protection against 
malefactors or the curious. The vault proper was better 
guarded; it was reached either by steep galleries which 
penetrated far into the mountain, or by shafts hidden 
in the ground of one of the rooms or of the platform, 
in most unexpected places and easy of concealment. 
The grants of land were crowded together, following the 
strata of the rock. Here might be seen groups of ûwe 
or six; there, twenty or thirty in file; isolated grants 
were rare, at least in the centre, at Assasif, Cheîkh- 
Abd-el-Gournah, or Gournet-Mourraî. The hills, per- 
forated in every direction, seem to be gigantic hives, the 
honeycomb of which suddenly upset in confusion and 
exposed to the light of day, brings the half-opened cells 
to view. In certain spots the galleries are so close to- 
gether that the rock wall which divides them measures 
only something between twenty-four inches and eight 
inches. The Copt monks, who inhabited them from the 
fifth century onwards, pierced or suppressed the partition 
walls in order to facilitate communication between the 
hermitages. Earthquakes have cracked the party- walls, 
the weight of the upper strata has crushed them, and the 
ceiling has fallen in. Near Assasif a whole hill has thus 



THE TOMBS OF THEBES 25 

given way, and several portions of Cheîkh-Abd-el- 
Gournah appear to be only awaiting a pretext to subside, 
through the destruction wrought by the careless work of 
men and the imperceptible wear and tear of time. 

As soon as the chambers were rough hewn by the 
masons, the sculptors and painters appeared on the 
scene. The hill of Thebes, unlike that of Memphis, is 
not of a compact and smooth consistency which lends 
itself to the chisel. The limestone, even in places where 
the quality is good, has been split and broken in the 
geological ages, and the cracks are filled up with infiltra- 
tions of black or red earth ; it often looks like a cake of 
puff-paste impregnated with chocolate and encrusted 
with enormous raisins of flint. It needed some skill to 
manipulate and fill in the cracks and depressions of the 
material in order to form a smooth surface on which the 
sculptor could work his reliefs; a great amount of 
trouble and labour produced only a poor result because 
the coatings and slabs of limestone with which the wall 
was patched soon gave way and the holes showed 
through the decoration. Therefore painting was often 
substituted for what sculpture could only accomplish 
with difficulty. To render the surface paintable, it 
was merely necessary to spread a rough layer of black 
clay or of common earth mixed with straw over the 
floor and wall, and then to give it a coat of milk of lime, 
or of white colour. Whether sculptured or painted the 
decoration never greatly varied. The artists to whom 
it was entrusted possessed two or three series of pictures, 
the combination of which formed the ideal decoration, 
as it were, of the tomb. The first series comprised scenes 
from the private or public life of the dead man, as well 
as the representation of the crafts needed to keep up a 
great house; the second series showed the funeral rites 
from the time the corpse became a mummy until the 
moment when the gods of the other world, Anubis the 



26 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

jackal and Amentît the mistress of the west, took posses- 
sion of the mummy wreathed in flowers. Some showed 
the ceremonies performed on the statue to accustom 
it to receive the offerings and nourish the soul; others 
presented to the spectators the different destinies of the 
human remains, its journeyings through the regions of 
darkness, its struggles against infernal monsters, its 
happiness in the paradise of Osiris or on the Boat 
of the Sun. Such decoration in its entirety would 
have required miles of wall space; therefore only frag- 
ments of it are to be found. The Pharaohs, even, 
flinched at the expense, and contented themselves with 
the most important parts. Rich men obtained some 
hundreds of yards, and as the ladder of fortune was 
descended, the space became restricted. The ordinary 
tomb would comprise only a sort of epitome, always 
conceived in the same terms unless the customer or 
his family expressed a desire for the substitution of 
some particular conception, or some particular picture. 
There is not the slightest difficulty in reconstructing the 
tomb even in the smallest details : the plates published 
by the members of the Cairo Mission would enable a 
mason and a painter accustomed to deal with buildings 
to erect it, if they so desired, in a corner of Paris exactly 
as it was. 

The choice of subjects was not left, however, to the 
caprice of the undertakers or their employers; it corre- 
sponded to the needs of the Theban soul and to the 
prevailing idea of posthumous existence. The soul was 
nourished on votive offerings and absorbed their sub- 
stance at first in reality, and then, when the rapidity 
with which new generations forgot the old ones was 
perceived, in symbol. The limestone or wooden figure 
of an animal or of a loaf of bread, the drawing of the 
same animal or loaf traced on the wall of the hypogeum, 
and endowed by the prayers of consecration with a sort 



THE TOMBS OF THEBES 27 

of mysterious vitality, represented for the shade, the 
soul, the double dwelling in the bottom of the vault, the 
living animal or the kneaded and baked wheaten loaf. 
The designer had then to choose from his sketch-books 
one of the many motives dealing with alimentation. 
Did the dead man desire bread ? The artist would sketch 
the field and the canals by which it was irrigated, the 
oxen drawing the plough and the sower scattering the 
seed; then the harvest, and the reapers, scythe in hand, 
cutting the corn, the threshing of the ears, the grain 
stored in the granary. The vines were represented on 
a panel of the wall at the side, with the gathering of 
the grapes, the wine-pressing and the pouring of the 
unfermented liquor into jars. The dead man assisted in 
these labours in company with his wife, dressed in new 
clothes and wearing a new wig as on the days of his 
earthly harvests; everything represented in the fresco 
belonged to him, and his soul, in contemplating the 
representation of the objects, secured their effective pos- 
session. The soul composed its bill of fare from the 
pictures with which the tomb was painted, and by virtue 
of formulas, the images became materialized to provide 
it with food, and yet were never destroyed nor diminished. 
Elsewhere might be represented the hunting of the river 
fowl or of the desert animals, fishing in the marshes, all 
the pleasures which, loved of the Egyptian, not only 
afforded him distraction from the toils of existence, but 
were also profitable ; the fish were split open, cured, and 
preserved in his presence in the picture, and formed a 
reserve to which he could turn when he was tired of 
game or meat. The left wall of the chapel sufficed to 
contain these rural episodes. On the right the master 
of the tomb was seated with his wife, and received 
from the hands of his children the meal prepared 
from the produce of his labours and of his excursions 
into the desert. The provisions were spread before 



28 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

him in bowls, in rush baskets, on small tables, on terra- 
cotta dishes, on mats of esparto grass; nothing that is 
eaten in Egypt was wanting : grapes, figs, cucumbers, 
water-melons, the onions that the Hebrews regretted at 
Sinai, weakly cabbages, chickens, gazelles' legs, calves' 
heads, cutlets, and scattered among them many differ- 
ent kinds of bread and cakes. Meanwhile half-naked 
dancing girls turned and twisted on the wall in their 
amorous dances, like the almehs of our day ; flutes trilled, 
tambourines boomed, the harpist invited the dead master 
and the survivors to " spend a happy day," for nothing 
endures in this world, and "bodies are born only to 
live while the gods decree. The sun rises in the morning 
and sets in the evening, men procreate and women bear 
children," and generations pass away one after the other 
without keeping any of the worldly goods they pos- 
sessed. " Forgetting all ills, oh Nofirhotpou, wise 
priest with pure hands, think only of the happiness of 
the day when thou shalt reach the land which loves 
silence, and that notwithstanding, the heart of the son 
who loves thee shall not cease to beat ! . . . Obey thy 
desires, and seek thy happiness so long as thou 
remainest on the earth, wear not thy heart in repining 
until the day comes when the impassive god hearkens 
not to those who implore from him a longer period of 
life. The lamentations of his friends do not help a man 
to be consoled in the tomb. Spend a happy day and 
enjoy it to thy utmost. For, verily, no man carries 
his possessions with him when he dies; verily, no one 
who has departed this life has ever returned." 1 

The most characteristic example of this type is in the 
tomb of Nakhouîti ; 2 there is nothing more delicate, more 

1 G. Bénédite : " Le Tombeau de Nofirhotpou," Mémoires^ V, 529- 

599- 

2 G. Maspero : "Le Tombeau de Nakhouîti," Mémoires, V, 469- 

585. 




! Il 






THE TOMBS OF THEBES 29 

elegant, more coquettish, even, nothing that savours 
less of the charnel-house than this little chamber with 
its variegated ceiling and its walls covered with graceful 
little figures, picked out in bright colours. It is to be 
regretted that it cannot be reproduced in colour, and 
that we must be contented with a black-and-white print 
of the whole and with photographs of the principal 
scenes. The other tombs described in the volume belonged 
to persons of high rank, chief ministers of Pharaoh, 
nobles of Thebes, one of them lord of Aphroditêspolis 
the Little, between Siout and Abydos. 1 They have 
suffered terribly, and what has been saved of the in- 
scriptions is extremely confused. Rakhmirîya, who 
lived under Thoutmôsis III, before the fifteenth century 
b.c., was pleased to transmit to us, in long orations 
the most circumstantial information about his adminis- 
trative career ; had the inscriptions come down to us intact 
we should know how justice was administered at Thebes, 
but, as always, the lacunae in the text occur at the 
most interesting places, and we remain in ignorance. 2 
Mankhopirrîya, Harmhabi, and several others exercised 
functions at the War Office, and presided, each in one 
district, at the recruiting of the troops. On the walls 
of their tombs bands of conscripts may be seen to arrive, 
give their names to the scribes ordered to register them, 
take their rations and their arms for the campaign ; 
further on, chariots are being made and the horses har- 
nessed to them. But unhappily, the design is rubbed in 
places, or intelligent tourists have carried off a piece of 
the picture, and a half-dozen similar tombs would have to 
be cleared from rubbish and described in order to com- 
plete our knowledge of Egyptian military procedure. 3 

1 G. Maspero : " Le Tombeau de Montouhikhopshouf," Mémoires, 
V, 433-468. 

2 Philippe Virey : " Le Tombeau de Rekhmarâ," Mémoires, V, 
1-195. 

3 U. Bouriant : " Le Tombeau d'Harmhabi," Mémoires, V, 419 et seq. 



30 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

Elsewhere, Nofirhotpou, having deserved well of Pha- 
raoh, is summoned to receive from his Majesty's hands 
the decoration of the Gold Collar. One fine morning at 
the conclusion of the service of Amon in the temple of 
Karnak, the king summons him, and from the daïs 
addresses a well-turned compliment to him while a 
couple of chamberlains fasten the collar round the for- 
tunate personage's neck : he had desired the scene to be 
pictorially recorded in his tomb in order that posterity 
might not ignore what a great man he was, and thus we 
may learn how the son of the Sun conferred honours on 
his servants. 1 To each of them occurred the excellent 
idea of choosing for his last dwelling-place a different 
type of decoration, and thanks to that fact we learn the 
detail of the ceremonies which accompany either the 
laying in the tomb or the annual sacrifices. We per- 
ceive in them a singularity and a barbarity strange in 
so civilized a people as the Egyptians. A widespread 
belief compelled the souls to leave the valley of the Nile 
by a fixed road to the west of Abydos. A chasm, a 
gorge occurred in the Libyan mountains by which they 
passed first to the Great Oasis, which was one of their 
primitive abiding-places, 2 and then to the slopes of the 
western mountain, to the point where the Boat of the 
Sun penetrates the caves of darkness. They all per- 
formed this lugubrious pilgrimage; they went from 
their town, that is from their tomb, to the entrance of 
the chasm, and thence into the other world with their 
train of servants, herds, and provisions. The journey 
was made by water, and to render it easier the Egyp- 
tians often placed properly equipped little boats of 
painted wood beside the coffin, and various little figures 

1 G. Bénédite : "Le Tombeau de Nofirhotpou," Mémoires, V, 
496-501, and Pt. V. 

2 G. Maspero : Mélanges de Mythologie et d'Archéologie, II, 421- 
427. 



THE TOMBS OF THEBES 31 

representing the defunct and his family. Every year on 
the solemn festivals of the dead, especially on that of the 
Ouagaît, there was dispatched to every one in the other 
world a fresh provision of corn, beasts, and servants. 
On the eve of this Egyptian All Saints' Day, one of 
the miniature boats was equipped, the sails were hoisted, 
and after prayers had been said over it, it set out for 
Abydos, which it soon reached with its cargo, and with 
the news of what had happened in the family during the 
year. 1 

All the rites were not equally innocent. A series of 
mysterious episodes, which may be traced in the finished 
portions of the hypogeum of Montouhikhopshouf, a noble 
of Aphroditêspolis the Little, relates to human sacrifice. 
The victims may be seen carried on a sledge, then 
strangled, and perhaps afterwards burnt with the oxen, 
the cakes, and the other votive offerings in a fire lighted 
opposite the tomb. Was it an actual fact or merely an 
imaginary episode? It is certain that in early times 
the throats of the prince's or noble's favourites were cut 
on the day of the funeral so that they might serve their 
master in the House of Eternity as they had in his 
earthly house ; later, real people were replaced by differ- 
ent kinds of statues and statuettes, the best known of 
which are the stone, wooden, or enamelled earthen dolls, 
hundreds of which are in our museums. Scenes copied 
from several tombs lead us to think that at the historical 
epoch human sacrifice was only a pretence practised on 
a statue or on a special person, the tikanou who played 
his part in the funerals of the rich, and was strangled 
several times a year without coming to much harm. But 
it is possible that relatives, more grieved than others, 
wished, perhaps, to bestow on him they mourned the 
satisfaction of taking away with him to the next world 

1 G. Maspero : Éludes Egyptiennes, I, pp. 132-399 ; cf. G. Bénédite : 
" Le Tombeau de Nofirhotpou," Mémoires, V, pp. 520-21, and pi. III. 



3 2 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

the souls of slaves who had been actually killed. 1 The 
Pharaohs murdered the hostile princes they took in 
war before the god Amon, and they commemorated the 
execution accomplished with their own hands, to the 
chanting of the priests, on the walls of the temples and 
the faces of the pylons. Human sacrifice was an ex- 
ception in their life, but they performed it without more 
scruple than the Roman generals who later concluded 
the ceremonies of the triumph with the death of the 
chiefs they had marched through the city. Egypt, even 
that of the Thoutmôsis and Ramses, was still too close 
to barbarism for the bloody ceremonials to have entirely 
disappeared. Time and the advance of civilization had 
banished them from everyday life, but they remained 
within the law, and no blame would attach to any one 
who restored thern. 

1 G. Maspero : " Le Tombeau de Montouhikhopshouf," Mémoires, 

V, 452-456. 



IV 

NAVILLE AND BUBASTIS 

For fourteen years Naville has most thoroughly 
scoured Egypt partly for his own pleasure and in- 
struction, partly for an English Archaeological Society, 
the Egypt Exploration Fund. He has made some of 
the most important discoveries of these last years, 1 and 
has published half-a-dozen volumes which will always 
be models for an explorer's book. The progress of 
operations is described with absolute clearness and 
honesty, the results of other explorers are noted at 
their full value, new historical or archaeological facts are 
briefly, boldly, and sincerely set forth. Let us add that 
he has in his own family an admirable draughtsman 
who transcribes the texts and monuments with a faithful 
and vigorous hand. Students have not been slow to ap- 
preciate this rare combination of qualities, and they 
give Naville a very high place among Egyptologists. 
The general public, less sensible of merits that are not 
loudly proclaimed, has ended by recognizing the full 
worth of a man who cares more to do his work well 
than to draw attention to it. The name of Naville carries 
weight with the public. 

One of the characteristics of the man is his eager- 
ness to prosecute apparently barren labours that skilled 
experts prefer to avoid. In Egypt, as in all ancient 
lands, there are sites on which some important find is 
sure to be made, provided that excavations are carried 

1 This was written in 1894 (Tr. note). 
3 33 



34 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

on for a long enough time or that there is enough money 
to ensure the employment of a large number of work- 
men. An explorer must be either awkward or unlucky 
to dig unsuccessfully at Thebes or in the neighbour- 
hood of Memphis. Such a mass of objects have been 
buried there from century to century that a notable 
proportion has perforce escaped the depredations of 
ancient and modern thieves : the number of chances of 
coming upon still intact remains in digging at hazard 
a fixed number of holes, might be calculated almost 
to a certainty. Other localities are reputed to be very 
poor, and attract less attention. What traveller would 
of his own free will stay at Tell-Bastah ? and how many 
of the thousands of tourists who traverse the valley of 
the Nile suspect the existence of Henassieh? Bubastis 
and Heracleopolis Magna were, however, powerful cities, 
and they supplied reigning dynasties to the Egypt of the 
Pharaohs : but the masters of the country wrought 
such destruction on them that their monuments are in 
fragments, or scarcely visible above the surface of the 
ground. The few Europeans who visit them perceive 
huge mounds, out of which a few pieces of walls are 
sticking, scattered stones, stumps of columns, and the 
multitude of variegated fragments that inundate the 
sites of ancient cities. The aspect is not inviting; it 
offers scarcely any likelihood of furnishing a complete 
building, intact statues, or one of the triumphant in- 
scriptions that narrate the whole life of a king or the 
events of an obscure epoch. To derive any profit we 
need all kinds of solid virtues such as most of us acquire 
but slowly; in order to find our way about the débris 
accumulated by a hundred successive generations we re- 
quire great skill in reading the ground, perseverance, tact, 
and intimate acquaintance with history and archaeology. 
Naville has, as it were, made a speciality of these dis- 
couraging localities, and has forced them to reveal to 




o _ 

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W -2 



a 






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NAVILLE AND BUBASTIS 35 

him what they had hitherto concealed. He has attacked 
one after the other, the Wady Toumîlât, 1 Saft-el-Hineh, 
the land of Goshen, 2 and has found, one after the other, 
the Pithom of the Bible, the Onias of the Maccabees, 3 
the Heroopolis of the Roman itineraries, the fortresses 
that the Ptolemies placed at intervals along the Salt 
Lakes then in communication with the Red Sea, Tell- 
Bastah and Henassieh are the two last heaps of ruins 
that he explored in the Delta and in Middle Egypt 
before moving his workshop to Thebes, to the celebrated 
temple of Deîr El-Baharî. 

When Herodotus visited it, Bubastis presented a 
paradoxical appearance. It had been continually built 
and rebuilt on a very contracted site, and had gradually 
been raised up while the temple remained at its primitive 
level : it was, so to speak, at the bottom of an oblong 
basin, the houses running round the rim. 4 The cat god- 
dess who was worshipped there held festivals of a pro- 
verbial gaiety, to which people came from all parts of 
the valley. Pilgrims, both men and women, crowded 
the boats, and the way was one perpetual masquerade. 
Each time they came alongside the quay, the women 
disembarked with a loud noise of castanets and flutes, 
and went to arouse the matrons of the place, frolicking 
about and tucking up their skirts in eager rivalry. To 
strangers the function did not seem to differ much 
from other Egyptian celebrations, a procession with 
hymns and sacrifices. But during the few preceding or 
following days, Bubastis was the scene of extraordinary 



1 E. Naville : The Store-City of 'Pithom and the Route of the Exodus, 
1 883-1 884, London. The book reached its fourth edition in twenty 
years, an unusual success for a purely archaeological work. 

2 E. Naville: Goshen and the Shrine of Saft-el-Hineh, 1 886-1 887, 
London. This book is in its second edition. 

8 E. Naville and LI. Griffith : The City of Onias and the Mou?id of 
the few s , 1 888-1 889, London. 
4 Herodotus, II. cxxxviii. 



36 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

rejoicings. " The gods of heaven rejoiced, the ancestors 
diverted themselves, those who were present became 
drunk with wine, their heads were crowned with 
flowers, the populace ran gaily to and fro, their heads 
streaming with perfume, in honour of the goddess; the 
children gambolled from sunrise to sunset." 1 The 
inhabitants proudly reckoned that more wine was drunk 
in a single day than during the whole of the rest of the 
year. 2 The fair has emigrated to the neighbouring city 
of Tantah, where the Mahommedan Egyptians offer the 
sheikh Sidi-Ahmed-El-Bedaouî the same homage of 
prayer and disorder as their pagan ancestors gave to 
Bastît, the cat goddess. The town, wholly deserted, cor- 
responds very well to the description Herodotus gave of 
it : the ruins of the houses crown a hollow at the bottom 
of which a few heaps of stones mark what remains of the 
temple. The aspect is so uninviting that Mariette, after 
working there a few days, despaired of finding anything 
to reward him for his pains. For a long series of years 
Tell-Bastah was abandoned to the mercy of sebakh 3 
diggers, who occasionally came upon scarabs, enamelled 
earthen figures, jewellery, and, lastly, the thousands of 
bronze cats which appeared on the market from 1880 to 
1890. Such excavations convinced Naville that deeper 
down more ancient débris would be found than had been 
hitherto believed; he resolutely set to work, and two 
laborious campaigns sufficed to lay bare the levellings 
of the temple. 

At first sight it did not seem to offer much : not a 
wall, a column, or a statue was intact. Everywhere there 
lay enormous stones worked on each face with car- 
touches, emblems, mutilated figures, broken portions of 



1 Diimichen : Bauurkunden der Tempelanlagen von Dander a, p. 21. 

2 Herodotus, II. lx. 

3 The saline dust of decomposing bricks used by the fellaheen as 
manure. 



NAVILLE AND BUB ASTIS 37 

texts. The materials had been employed over and over 
again in those far-off times, and the face, already in- 
scribed, was turned round so that new kings might be 
commemorated on the other side. It was easy to see 
that the temple had been rebuilt by Cheops and 
Chephrên, the most illustrious Pharaohs of the IVth 
Dynasty; that those of the Xllth had enlarged and 
restored it; that, half-destroyed in the times of the 
Shepherd Kings, the conquerors of the XlXth Dynasty 
had lavishly repaired it, and lastly, the XXIInd Dynasty, 
native to the place, greatly extended the buildings. 
But when its history was thus determined, what means 
was there of reconstructing the different buildings in 
imagination and of piecing together the decoration that 
covered their surfaces? Naville turned the blocks 
strewn over the ground on all sides, and copied them 
in detail ; then he put all the copies together, and with 
patience succeeded in combining the fragments so as 
to restore figures, scenes, inscriptions, sometimes whole 
panels. It is necessary to have oneself undertaken a 
similar task to understand the great effort and the 
amount of work that the two years of his life at Bubastis 
cost him. Two volumes contain the definite result : the 
first gives the general description of the temple ; 1 the 
second the theoretical reconstruction of a courtyard and 
of a monumental door on which festivals of a particular 
kind were represented. 2 The work is so far unique in 
Egyptology; the material is so vast, and the workmen 
so few, that temples as ruined and defaced as that of 
Bubastis have nearly always been neglected. Build- 
ings are preferred which are more easily attacked and 
the ruins of which preserve a continuous context. But 
the fellaheen break the stones in order to make them 

1 Bubastis, 1 889-1 890, with fifty- four plates and plans. 

2 The Festival Hall of Osorkon II in the Great Temple of Bubastis, 
with thirty-nine plates. 



3 8 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

into lime or to sell the pieces to tourists. Many monu- 
ments valuable for history and art have thus disappeared 
which might have been saved if all students of Egypt- 
ology had displayed a perseverance equal to that of 
Naville. 

Nothing is more curious than the restored Festival- 
Hall. It was built by Osorkon II about the middle of 
the ninth century b.c., and commemorated, if not the 
anniversary of his accession, that of his deification. It 
represents the sovereign and the priests of Amon, and 
the priesthood of the Egyptian towns, and the numerous 
actors who took part in the greater ceremonies, nobles, 
soldiers, slaves, men and women of the people. Osor- 
kon II comes out of his palace to go to the temple, he 
enters the sanctuary, and sees his father Amon face to 
face, who assures him of his paternal love, blesses him, 
embraces him, introduces him to the immortals. The 
sovereign, about to become a god in his turn, receives 
the homage of his brother gods, and the prayers of 
mortals. The procession moves on, accompanied by 
the plaudits of the crowd; here the soldiers execute 
war-dances; there dwarfs or negroes make countless 
grimaces, contort themselves in endless ways while the 
spectators encourage them by their cries. The proces- 
sion returns to the palace with as much pomp as it set 
out, and while Osorkon, fatigued but deified, gives a 
banquet to the persons of the court, the town continues 
its diversions far into the night. It is not the fair of 
which Herodotus writes, the preparations for which he 
has so well described, but we cannot help thinking that 
the spectacle of which the Greek traveller caught a 
glimpse must have closely resembled the varied episodes 
of that which we can follow on the walls of the pylon 
designed by Madame Naville. The Egypt that its mum- 
mies lead us to regard as morose and gloomy was one of 
the gayest countries of antiquity. The fellaheen, then 



NAVILLE AND BUBASTIS 39 

as now, possessed a spirit of irony and quickness of 
repartee; they laughed easily, and rapidly forgot the 
griefs and annoyances of daily life. It did not take 
much to amuse them, and like children they were easily 
pleased with little things. 

The religious fervour and the acclamations with which 
they saluted the statues and the sacred sarcophagi that 
defiled before them, did not prevent them from observ- 
ing and appreciating the grotesque incidents which 
invariably occur even in the best ordered ceremonials : 
a slip of one of those carrying the offerings, or the con- 
tortions of the negro dancers were received with great 
shouts of laughter and all sorts of buffoonery, which the 
legends, engraved above the groups, record for our 
édification. No one feared to take liberties with a 
divinity in whom faith was so strong ; no one felt obliged 
to pull a long face, or to assume an unnatural serious- 
ness in order to testify his reverence : it was not con- 
sidered a slight to the gods to laugh in their presence or 
during their public processions. 

Has Heracleopolis really left fewer traces than Bubas- 
tis? It would be unwise to say so. Immense mounds 
are scattered over the site it occupied, on which stand 
the different villages that form the modern city of 
Henassieh. A row of big columns, which belonged to 
a Roman or Byzantine basilica, can just be seen above 
the ground; but besides those only quite unimportant 
lines of brick walls. The area is so large that many 
thousand pounds would be required to excavate it 
wholly; the monuments might be concealed for months 
or years, and the explorer's patience would be exhausted 
before he had reached the end of his excavations. 
Naville only made a few slight excavations on the site, 
but the little he did deserves to be mentioned. What 
interests us in Heracleopolis is that it served as the 
capital of Egypt during the first half of what is called 



4 o NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

the Middle Empire. Two dynasties, the IXth and the 
Xth, came from it, and the first of the great Theban 
Dynasties, the Xllth and XHIth, resided within its 
walls or at the entrance of Fayoum on its territory. 
Those Pharaohs embellished it with important build- 
ings, and the inscriptions tell us that they brought the 
granite or basalt needed by the architects from the 
desert situated between the Nile and the Red Sea. 
There was then a chance of finding some traces of those 
princes and their works amid the ruins, and Naville 
actually disinterred several fine architraves, the inscrip- 
tions of which contain the name of Ousirtasen II. Un- 
fortunately, Heracleopolis suffered greatly during the 
civil wars, and its temples were repeatedly pulled down 
and destroyed. Ramses II gave to Arsaphes, the great- 
est of them, the form it kept until the introduction of 
Christianity. He utilized the columns cut by his pre- 
decessors of the Xllth Dynasty, and his name is almost 
the only one in the inscriptions copied by Naville. 1 The 
vestibule remains ; the chambers and the sanctuary have 
almost completely disappeared. The old Pharaohs 
preferred the fine white limestone that lends itself so 
admirably to sculpture, but which furnishes inimitable 
lime-wash. The Copts and then the Arabs demolished 
and calcined piece by piece everything built of lime- 
stone. The history inscribed on the walls vanished in 
smoke, or was spread in whitewash on the fellaheen's 
huts. 

Naville has since spent two years in the valley of Deîr 
El-Baharî. He recently sent photographs showing the 
point reached in his task to the Academy of Inscriptions, 
of which he is a correspondent. This time it is not a 
matter of piecing fragments together, but of clearing 

1 E. Naville : Ahnas el Medineh {Heracleopolis Magna), with 
Chapters on Mendes, the Nome of Thoth a?id Leontopolis, London, 
1891-1892. 



NAVILLE AND BUBASTIS 41 

away the rubbish from an édifice which is almost intact, 
an undertaking similar to the clearing of Abydos, 
Denderah, Louxor and Edfou. The early kings of the 
XVIIIth Dynasty chose the bottom of the amphitheatre 
in which to build a funerary chapel. Thoutmôsis I 
began it, Thoutmôsis II continued it, the Queen 
Hatshopsouîtou and Thoutmôsis III finished it. It 
was a temple with several tiers of terraces resting against 
the sides of the hill. The porticoes are supported by 
columns with sixteen angles, topped with a simple 
abacus of a beauty of proportion and an elegance of 
curve unusual even in the best periods of Egyptian art. 
The sculptures with which the walls are covered equal 
the finest bas-reliefs of the temple of Setouî I, and are 
perhaps even of a freer and firmer sweep. It is too soon 
as yet to judge the aspect that the monument will pre- 
sent when Naville has finished removing the sand which 
buries it in places up to the architrave, and hides the 
approaches. But as much as is already visible possesses 
a beauty and a charm usually lacking in the Egypt of 
the Pharaohs. 



SYRIA FROM THE EIGHTEENTH TO THE FOURTEENTH 
CENTURY B.C. AS IT APPEARS IN THE EGYPTIAN 
MONUMENTS 

The geography of the ''monuments" leaves a wide 
vacuum between Assyria and Egypt. The prosperous, 
turbulent races of Phoenicia, Philistia, Canaan, 
Amorrhea, Northern Syria, and Cilicia had no liking for 
spacious buildings, and deemed it useless to adorn their 
temples and palaces with the profusion of inscriptions 
and bas-reliefs that make the ruins of Nineveh and 
Thebes a sort of paradise for the archaeologist. They 
wrote little on stone, they sculptured still less, and if 
they had always been strong enough to preserve their 
independence we should know little of their history or 
even of their names. But they were intelligent enough 
to let themselves be often beaten, and to provide the 
Pharaohs and the Assyrian kings with matter for 
numerous victories; their defeats are recorded on both 
sides of the isthmus, all details are described, and the 
flight of their armies or the taking of their fortresses 
is painted on the walls. The praiseworthy zeal of the 
sovereigns in celebrating their own glory enables us 
to know the physiognomy, the costume, the ornaments, 
the worship, and the manners of these conquered peoples 
with sufficient accuracy. Every modern student has 
derived subjects for articles from these pictures of 
battles and warlike prowess, best suited to their par- 
ticular tastes or aptitudes. Some have given us the 

42 



SYRIA 43 

political history of Egypt, others an illustrated com- 
mentary of biblical narratives, others again a supple- 
ment to the prevailing ideas on the beginnings of Greek 
civilization, and Max Muller the geography of Western 
Asia and of Europe chiefly between the eighteenth and 
tenth centuries b.c. 1 

The Max Muller of whom I speak is not the celebrated 
Oxford philologist, converted to Egyptology in his 
old age. The name Muller is very common in Ger- 
many, and the prefix Max has become so distinguished 
that many a Muller bestows it on his son as an earnest 
of future fame and prosperity. Our Max Mùller, still 
a young man, is a native of Nuremberg, but he 
emigrated a few years ago to the University of Phila- 
delphia. He has contributed learned articles to our 
reviews, and although his criticism is sometimes 
extravagant, it is always full of new ideas and original 
observation. In this work, the first destined for the 
public, he has put together ideals supplied by the 
Egyptian inscriptions about the European or Asiatic 
races with whom the Pharaohs came in contact. The work 
has been criticized elsewhere. 2 What must be noted 
here and unreservedly praised is the number of refer- 
ences he has collected, their clever, not to say happy, 
treatment, the complete picture of the Syrian countries 
he has succeeded in deriving from them. Experts will 
shake their heads at certain passages, but the whole 
is so cleverly and successfully arranged that for a long 
while it will be an indispensable document for historians 
and prove a sure assistance in their studies. The 
number of hieroglyphic characters, and the strange 
shapes assumed by the ancient names when they are 



1 W. Max Muller : A sien und Europa nach altœgyptischen Dcnk- 
mœlern, mit einem Vorwort von G. Ebers, mit zahlreichen Abbild- 



ungen in Zincotypie und einer Karte. Leipzig, I 
2 Revue Critique, 1894, I. pp. 501-505. 



893. 



44 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

transcribed in Roman letters, will put off many readers ; 
it is an almost inevitable inconvenience in most works 
about the ancient lands of the East; but those who 
can overcome their fear will be rewarded for their 
courage by the information that they will gain. 

The whole of Syria was then under Chaldaean influ- 
ence. Between 3000 and 4000 b.c. Babylon had several 
times directly exercised her authority. Her kings had 
led triumphant expeditions there, and planted there the 
manners of the nations of the Euphrates. Her merchants 
visited it in larger numbers than did those of Egypt, 
and sold there to advantage their jewels, arms, and stuffs. 
The infiltration of Chaldaean customs was so thorough 
that about 1600 b.c., when the Pharaohs invaded it, the 
Phoenician and Canaanitish cities must for the most 
part have looked to the travellers like provincial towns 
of Chaldaea, Ourou, Nipour, or Sippara. The inhabitants 
wore the heavily-embroidered and motley-coloured robes 
of the Babylonians, and the long hair and curled or 
waved beard in the fashion prevailing in the plains of 
the Euphrates ; they adopted the cuneiform alphabet, 
and wrote it with metal or bone stylets on slabs of clay 
like the Chaldaean scribes. Not only were private affairs 
thus discussed, but also affairs of State; so that when 
the Pharaohs had conquered the countries of Libya they 
were able to procure interpreters and secretaries who 
could decipher the cuneiform, and so assist with the 
diplomatic correspondence. 1 They were not exigent 
with regard to the use of hieroglyphics when a request 
or notice was addressed to them from Damascus or 
Jerusalem; so long as the tribute was punctually paid 
in metal free from alloy they did not care whether the 
dispatch announcing its coming was written in one 
character or another. They did nothing to change the 

1 Cf. Chapter I. 



SYRIA 45 

taste or habits of the Syrian peoples, and were quite 
willing that they should model their way of life on that 
of their ancient masters. If after a time certain tenden- 
cies to imitate Egypt are observed in their industries 
and fashions, the change is caused not by force, but by 
an entirely voluntary spirit of initiative. The Egyptian 
models had at least the merit of novelty, and their 
elegance caused them to be gladly accepted as soon 
as they were seen to be the more numerous. They 
never entirely superseded the others, and both the art 
and the civilization of those lands, notwithstanding the 
individuality which belonged to their position, occupied 
a middle place between Egypt and Chaldaea. 

The land was divided into small isolated states con- 
tinually at war with each other for the purpose of con- 
quering or preserving the lordship of a few acres of 
wheat in the plain, or a few wooded ravines in the 
hills. The caravans or the armies traversed at least a 
kingdom a day, sometimes even several kingdoms be- 
tween two halting-places. The King of Mageddo could 
see from his own capital that of the King of Taanach, 
who, before reaching the horizon, would come up to the 
frontiers of the empires of Apour or Shounem. All these 
kingdoms were strongly fortified, and possessed walled 
enclosures large enough to shelter the inhabitants of the 
villages dependent on them at the first alarm of war. 
Most of them were perched on isolated hills, or on spurs 
of the mountains, attached to the principal chain by a 
sort of narrow embankment. Their walls followed the 
contours of the ground, and were drawn up on two or 
three lines to the most accessible points. They were 
built of stone, flanked by high embattled towers, fortified 
with a keep in which the governor and the rest of the 
garrison took refuge after the city itself had been taken 
by storm. Sometimes these enclosures were taken by 
means of scaling ladders, or by breaking down and 



46 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

burning the gates, but mostly they had to be blockaded, 
and reduced by famine. Whether dwellers in the cities 
or in the country, the temperament of the Syrians was 
violent and hard even to cruelty; they were fond of 
cutting off their prisoners' hands and feet, and they 
massacred them in cold blood after the fight. Their 
war equipment was as perfect as that of the Egyptians, 
and consisted of shield, pike, javelins, bow and arrows, 
axes, swords, poniards, a pointed helmet, and often a 
long padded coat which did duty for a cuirass; their 
chariots were heavy, and carried three men, the soldier, 
the shield-bearer, the driver, while the Egyptian 
chariots only carried two men, the soldier and the 
shield-bearer, who acted also as driver. They yielded 
easily to Pharaoh's soldiers, but more from lack of 
discipline than lack of courage. As one of their small 
armies was unable to stand against the large armies of 
Egypt, in order to send considerable troops into the 
field they sometimes combined, but unaccustomed to 
work together they quickly fell into confusion under 
the concerted movements and heavy charges of their 
adversaries. They only began to gain important advan- 
tages after two centuries of subjection, when the Hittites 
united all the countries of the north under their 
dominion, and opposed Ramses II with compact troops 
accustomed to fight under the command of one general. 

The names of the nations and the towns are scattered 
through the inscriptions in which the episodes of con- 
quest are narrated, but they are found recorded together 
in interminable lists on the walls of the Theban pylons. 
The kings were accustomed to bring away files of 
prisoners yoked together with a rope, and they seem to 
have dragged them behind their chariots. The poor 
wretches, after they had taken part in the triumphal 
procession on the day of the sovereign's return, were 
for the most part condemned to slavery; some of 



SYRIA 47 

the most noble of them, however, were led by the con- 
queror before the image of his father, Amonrâ, and 
sacrificed to the god with blows of the club. 1 They 
were engraved in a conspicuous place in the temple, but 
as the whole of them would have taken too much space, 
abbreviated groups were substituted in which the name 
of each was combined with his idealized portrait. The 
body became a sort of indented ellipse in which the 
name was engraved; shoulders rose above it, and two 
arms bound behind jutted out from them, and above 
was a human head, a Semite head for the Asiatics, 
a negro head for the tribes of the Upper Nile. They 
were arranged in a fairly regular order, nearly always 
similar, and we can often successfully identify them with 
Hebrew, Greek, or Arab places. Many commemorate 
obscure towns; a few inform us of the existence at that 
time of cities famous in classical ages. They are chiefly 
those of Palestine : Gaza, Ascalon, Joppa, Mageddo, 
Taanach, Accho, and a hundred besides among which it 
is strange not to find Jerusalem ; it flourished, however, 
and the dispatches of its kings tell us that it was called 
Ourousalîm. Damascus is there under the form Dimas- 
kou, with Hamath and a fortress then celebrated, 
Qodshou on the Orontes; towns in Northern Syria may 
be counted by tens : Khaloupou-Alep, Karchemis at the 
ford of the Euphrates, Nirab, Dour-Banat, which is the 
Castrum puellarum of our Crusades, Ourima, Dolikhê. 
Phoenicia proper does not appear in these triumphal 
lists, and only the most northerly of its towns, Arad 
and Simyra, are thereon inscribed. Byblos, Sidon, 
Sarepta, and Tyre were inhabited by cautious traders 
who felt themselves powerless to resist Pharaoh's archers 
and sailors; they reckoned that in paying tribute they 
would have the advantage of trading without hindrance 

1 Cf. Chapter III. 



4 8 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

with their would-be masters, and that by these pacific 
measures they would gain the money for their annual 
tribute. They were never beaten because they never 
resisted; but other documents mention their country. 
Tyre, for instance, was already embarked in the open 
sea on her island, although she had as yet no springs 
nor cisterns from which to drink, and had to import 
water from the mainland. 

She had reasons for her prudence. She had already 
begun her voyages of discovery and her colonization 
of the eastern coasts of the Mediterranean. She had 
established herself in the large island of Cyprus, then 
called Asi (Asia), which provided her with wood for 
her ships, with copper and bronze for her metal-workers. 
By degrees she had gained Crete, the islands of the 
Archipelago, continental Greece, possibly the shores 
of the Propontis and of the Black Sea. She found there 
races of a different origin and of a lower civilization 
than that of the east, but not, as is sometimes thought, 
savage races. She brought them the product of Asiatic 
industries, and received from them in exchange the 
primitive materials used by her in her factories : alum, 
colours, purple dye, gold, silver, bronze, rude vases 
and ornaments, which pleased the educated taste of 
Egypt or Syria, just as European women prize and 
wear African or Asiatic jewellery. Her sailors occupied 
small islands, and built factories on well-situated pro- 
montories, where they felt themselves protected from the 
aborigines. It is probable that like the Carthaginians 
at a later period they carefully concealed the position 
of the lands they discovered, and only spoke of them 
in a vague way. They were the Islands of the sea, the 
Countries of the sea, and the Egyptians named them in 
the same way, Islands of the Very Green, Countries of 
the Very Green, the Very Green being our Mediterranean. 
It would be erroneous, however, to suppose that they 



SYRIA 49 

were content to speak of them according to what they 
heard from their Phoenician vassals, and that they never 
attempted to approach them directly. They had no 
dread of the sea, as is so often stated, but each powerful 
Dynasty by which they were ruled was careful to create 
a navy on a war basis to protect the mouths of the 
Nile, or to encourage the development of the mercantile 
marine which coasted between the ports of the Delta 
and those of the Syrian shore. The pictures at Deîr El- 
Baharî present a few ships of the royal navy of Thout- 
rnosis III. It would count for little with us, but it must 
not be forgotten that Egypt was at that time the most 
formidable power in the world, and her fleet stood for 
the best that could be furnished by the shipbuilder's 
yards of any country. Her voyages into the country of 
the Somali in search of incense testify to the skill of 
her pilots ; and what they accomplished without disaster 
in the south, they could certainly have undertaken in 
the less perilous regions of the north. 

We are not fortunate enough to possess a detailed and 
illustrated narrative of any of these explorations, but we 
have a direct proof that they repeatedly took place. 
The Pharaohs kept royal envoys in Syria, persons 
of rank chosen from the most intelligent or noblest of 
those immediately about them. The names of some 
of them have come down to us, but the one about whom 
we have most information lived in the reign of Amenô- 
thês IV. He is one Doudou, whose tomb still exists in 
the hills of El-Amarna, and who is often mentioned in 
the dispatches exchanged between the sovereign and his 
Asiatic vassals. Doudou represented Pharaoh in Syria, 
he travelled through the country, hearing complaints, 
redressing wrongs, trying to restore order wherever 
some chief was making a disturbance ; the post of royal 
messenger exacted that the holder of it should go in 
person to the provinces, the government of which was 
4 



50 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

entrusted to him. Among those messengers whose 
monuments have survived, several bear in addition the 
title administrators of the northern countries^ and added 
to the mention of that charge are a certain number of 
flattering epithets destined to enumerate the countries 
over which they exercised the supremacy of Egypt. 
Thoutii, one of the most celebrated of them, the hero 
of a popular tale, said of himself that he owed the favour 
of his master, Thoutmôsis III, to the zeal with which he 
performed his mission "to every foreign land,'' "to 
the Islands of the Very Green " ; he had filled the 
treasury with lapis-lazuli and gold and silver from those 
far-off regions. 1 Did an Egyptian vessel or a Phoeni- 
cian squadron take him there? We do not know, but 
Rakhmirîya, one of his contemporaries, had the people 
of these islands painted in his tomb, and elsewhere, the 
galleys which took them to Thebes may be seen; the 
model is entirely Egyptian, and they are manned by 
pure-bred Egyptians. For my part I see no reason to 
doubt that more than one Egyptian visited Greece in 
the middle of the XVIIIth Dynasty. The Phoenicians, 
who were themselves dependent on the Theban king, 
owned many islands, and in sending a messenger to 
the vassals or subjects of his vassals, he was using a 
right of which no one in the world would then have 
contested the legitimacy. There is a long-standing pre- 
judice which prevents some students from admitting that 
these ancient relations, of which the Greeks of the 
classical era had not entirely lost the remembrance, ever 
existed except in the imagination of Egyptologists, but 
everything and anything may be expected of Egypt; 
I am certain that when its monuments are better known, 
inscriptions or pictures will be found that will remove 
all doubt even from the most prejudiced minds. 

1 Devéria : Mémoires et Fragments, I. pp. 35-53 ; partly from his 
own researches, partly from those of Birch. 




Pharaoh Thoutmosis III., from a Statue in the Museum at Cairo. 



SYRIA 51 

Two or three centuries after Thoutmôsis III, the 
points of contact between the inhabitants of the shores 
of the ^Egean Sea and the civilized countries of the East 
increased. The races of the sea became active, and 
desired to conquer a new country for themselves on the 
banks of the Nile. The Achaeans fought in the open 
Delta before settling at Cyprus, like the Tyrsenes before 
turning to Italy. That fact astonishes those modern 
students who imagine that the antique world was an 
assemblage of timorous, home-keeping nations or tribes, 
terrified at the notion of courting adventures, forced from 
time to time to conquest by ambitious sovereigns, but 
always ready to return to their isolation and immobility 
as soon as such tiresome rulers had ceased to exist. It 
is the other side of this picture that is true, and a rest- 
lessness, often quite aimless, was as great two thousand 
years b.c. as it was in the Roman era. The histories of 
Egypt, of Syria, of Assyria, of Chaldsea are, wherever we 
know them, filled with accounts of distant expeditions by 
land and sea. The imperfect means of communication, 
the bad state of the rivers, the insecurity of the roads, 
the perpetual danger of robbery, death or slavery, 
nothing indeed daunted the traders, and the sailors 
were as courageous as the leaders of the caravans; they 
ploughed the eastern Mediterranean in every sense, and 
the peoples whom they visited, inspired by their 
example, did not hesitate to brave the risks of long 
voyages. They took weeks over what we should accom- 
plish in a few hours. A cape that our smallest vessels 
easily double at any season, took them several days, 
since they were forced to await a relative calm or a favour- 
able wind for their frail boats. Terrible tales are told 
of whirlpools which swallowed up everything, of islands 
inhabited by monsters, or which sunk beneath the waves 
directly they were approached, of moving rocks between 
which it was necessary to glide very quickly to avoid 



52 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

being crushed ; but they set out all the same, certain not 
to return till after long years of absence. The tradi- 
tions of Greece preserved the memory of the voyages 
and migrations to which the forerunners of the classic 
Hellenes were accustomed; but archaeologists relegated 
them to the domain of fable in so peremptory a manner 
that they were only mentioned with mistrust and even 
with apology. Egypt and Egyptologists have often 
reminded us that many doubtful traditions contain a 
large amount of truth, and have furnished contemporary 
proof of several migrations of peoples. But their testi- 
mony has been revoked, and many persons are still 
incredulous. They should carefully study Max Miiller's 
book, in which they will find plenty of material to 
convince them. 



VI 

EGYPT AND THE ELEUSINIAN MYSTERIES 

The number of dissertations on the origin and nature 
of the Eleusinian mysteries are in inverse proportion 
to the scantiness of precise information concerning the 
ceremonies performed at them. The initiated solemnly 
undertook not to reveal anything, and scarcely ever 
spoke of them, or, if they did, merely mentioned such 
generalities as were known to all. The Christian apolo- 
gists, restrained by a dread of awkward consequences to 
which they would have exposed themselves by too 
flagrant indiscretions, never openly concerned themselves 
with the demonstration of dogmas or secret operations. 
And, besides, the spirit of proselytism, which was so 
strong in them, led them to see only the ridiculous or 
indecent side of the ceremonies, and renders their testi- 
mony suspect or incomplete. In order to guess at what 
took place in the sanctuary, we have nothing but brief 
allusions here and there, made more obscure by their 
personal bias, in the writings of the Christian apolo- 
gists, the historians, the orators, the moralists, the 
poets, the grammarians and rhetoricians. Inscriptions 
of different epochs confirm, correct and contradict this 
information, and sometimes add valuable details. It 
has all been classified, labelled, and commented on by 
generations of students, whose systems, suited to the 
taste and fashion of the moment, are clever and well 
deduced, but so subtle in essence, and so rarefied in 
invention, that after studying them we know even less 

53 



54 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

than before. We leave them with the clear conviction 
that if the Eleusinian ceremonies were mysteries for the 
ancients, they are in another way equally ineffable mys- 
teries for us, and we console ourselves for our ignorance 
with the fact that the experts themselves know very 
little on the subject. 

Foucart, however, decided to publish the result of his 
researches in this hazardous region. 1 He has good 
reason for knowing Eleusis, and for interesting himself 
in the religious associations of Greece; his experience 
has suggested a solution of the problem that I consider 
wholly true in bulk, and nearly so in detail. Some will 
hesitate to admit it, or will only half acknowledge it; 
but all will agree in admiring the clear way in which he 
puts the problem, explains the inscriptions one by the 
other, and leads the reader to the conclusion without 
shirking any difficulty or obstacle that he is unable to 
overcome. Even in France, where clearness is so highly 
prized, students capable of conducting a dissertation of 
eighty quarto pages so that no point is obscure through 
any fault of composition, and where the principal thesis 
is demonstrated by a series of proofs skilfully introduced 
at the right moment, are rare : the result is that the 
reader passes, almost unconsciously, from mistrust and 
scepticism to conviction. Foucart shows at the begin- 
ning that the Demeter of Eleusis is an Egyptian by 
birth, an Isis who gradually became hellenized. He 
accompanies her in her evolution, notes what her priest- 
hood was, with its ideas on the future life, and the 
especial turn of its doctrines, what attraction it offered 
to pious minds, and the various ways by which it rallied 
them round it. It is very strange to find this profes- 
sional Hellenist, whose education was in no way calcu- 

1 P. Foucart : " Recherches sur l'origine et la nature des mystères 
d'Eleusis " (extract from the Mémoires de V Académie des Inscriptions 
et Belles Lettres, Vol. xxxv, Pt. 2), 1895. 



EGYPT AND ELEUSINIAN MYSTERIES 55 

lated to lead him into the paths of oriental origins, 
allowing himself to be gradually attracted by matters 
Egyptian, and to give them an attention refused by so 
many of our classical students, and then beginning to 
love them, yet never for an instant losing the even 
balance of his mind, and the perfect equilibrium of his 
judgment. 

The ancient Greeks, who had a sufficiently good 
opinion of themselves, and who easily persuaded them- 
selves of their superiority over the barbarians (that is, 
over all other nations), admitted, however, that they 
owed some of the elements of their civilization to the 
great nations of the East, to the Egyptians in particular. 
Modern Hellenists, more Greek in that point than the 
old Greeks themselves, long repudiated the tradition of 
debts to the East, and put forward excellent reasons for 
believing that Greece produced and developed all her 
gods, all her religious and philosophical opinions, with- 
out foreign aid. Foucart, on the contrary, admits the 
authenticity of the legends that preserved the memory of 
the Egyptian migrations. The monuments of the Theban 
Dynasties record that from the sixteenth century b.c., 
the officers of King Thoutmôsis III and his successors 
went straight from the mouth of the Nile or the coast 
of Syria to the islands of the ^Egean Sea in Phoenician 
boats. 1 The horror of the sea always attributed to the 
Egyptians did not prevent them from navigating it from 
the Vth and Vlth Dynasties; in the XVIIIth Dynasty 
they were a maritime power, in so far as is possible for a 
nation possessing a restricted coast-line, and their ships 
sailed to Somaliland, past the straits of Bab-el-Mandeb, 
the land of incense, or they sailed periodically to Syria, 
Cyprus, or Asia Minor. The prejudice against the 
tradition of fairly close relations between the cities 
of Hellas and those of Egypt is solely that of the 
1 Cf. Chapter V. 



56 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

philologist or classical archaeologist entirely ignorant 
of oriental studies. The prejudice is dying out, but 
opinions due to it still exist in some degree, and more 
than one historian is opposed to the thought that exiles 
or traders could go from the mouths of the Nile to 
Argolis or Attica. Foucart believes it, and quotes facts 
of a nature to prove it. He afterwards compares the 
person and worship of the Eleusinian Demeter with the 
person and worship of Isis, and then shows that the 
resemblance between the two goddesses is not merely 
accidental and on the surface, but must be sought in the 
depths of their nature. The Greek is not a servile copy 
of the Egyptian, adapted to her Western environment, 
but preserves the chief characteristics of her African 
model. Her religion reminds the faithful of the double 
benefit she has conferred on them, the invention of 
agriculture which has introduced them into the civilized 
life of this world, and the initiation into mysteries which 
assured them happiness in the other world. Her most 
ancient ceremonies which existed in the eleventh century 
b.c. celebrate the moment when the corn springs, when 
the straw is formed, when the grain is threshed. The 
first-fruits of the harvest were consecrated to her, and 
her most sacred emblem, that which was presented to 
the initiated only at the very last, was the blade of ripe 
corn. To those who bound themselves to her by cere- 
monies and solemn oaths, she promised certain happi- 
ness in the other world as a reward for their devotion. 
It is not necessary to be a learned Egyptologist to 
recognize the Isis of the Delta under the Greek name 
and robe, the fertile earth, lady of the harvests and of 
bread, who awards her faithful ones the same fate which 
she assured to her husband, Osiris, and who guides 
them to a shining paradise through the horrors of the 
darkness beyond the tomb. 

The revelations made to the neophytes contained no 



EGYPT AND ELEUSINIAN MYSTERIES 57 

moral teaching, no philosophical symbolism. They 
comprised three different elements, a drama performed 
for them by the priesthood during the vigils of the 
initiation, the objects shown to them, the formulas 
uttered and taught to them. The drama instructed them 
in facts unknown, or imperfectly known to the common 
herd ; the rape of Cora by Hades, the grief of Demeter, 
and her sad journeys in search of her daughter, her 
union with Celeus, and the birth of Euboleus, the man- 
ner in which Triptolemus delivered her half-sister Cora 
on a chariot drawn by serpents. In another series of 
scenes the hierophant and the priestess of Demeter acted 
the marriage of Zeus and Demeter, and presented to the 
spectators the ultimate result, the blade of ripe corn. 
The representation took place in the sacred enclosure, 
and in the halls of the temple; there were few scenic 
decorations, no mechanical contrivances, or complicated 
devices. " The silence of the night, the alternations of 
light and shade, the majestic voice of the sacred herald, 
the imposing robes of the hierophants and ministers 
engaged in the solemnities, the singing of the choir, now 
plaintive, now triumphant, exercised a strong influence 
on the senses and imagination. The heart thus excited 
by the preparation that preceded the initiation, mystery 
easily held sway in the sacred precincts; the promises 
and semi-revelations of the mystagogue to whom the 
instruction of the novice was entrusted, the retreat into 
the Eleusinium of Athens, the fasting, the repeated puri- 
fications and sacrifices, the songs and dances of the pro- 
cession from Athens to Eleusis, the continual shouts of 
Iacchos, the arrival by torchlight in the holy city, and, 
above all, the impatient and anxious anticipation of what 
was to be revealed, combined to incline a man to strong 
emotion. And when at last the hierophant disclosed the 
sacred effigies to his view, in a form and with attributes 
unknown to the profane, must he not have felt nearer the 



58 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

gods, as if admitted to contemplate them face to face?" 
But that was not sufficient to give him the certitude of 
everlasting happiness in the future life. He desired 
more than the sight of gods suffering, and then triumph- 
ing in glory; he required a solemn act in which he 
played a part, before acquiring full possession of the 
mysterious truth. We know that it was like an anticipa- 
tory rehearsal of the peregrinations his soul would have 
to make before attaining supreme felicity. Plutarch tells 
us that there were first walks at random through diffi- 
cult by-ways, disquieting and interminable wanderings 
in utter darkness, all simulating the way through hell 
that must be traversed before reaching paradise. When, 
at last, he was on the point of succumbing to fatigue 
and terror, a wonderful light dawned on his eyes, and 
he gazed on the pure places, and on the meadows full 
of dancing and singing, of holy speeches and divine 
apparitions. Even then the revelation was incomplete; 
it indicated the obstacles to be overcome, and the end 
towards which his efforts were directed, but it neglected 
to show the way by which he could come forth victorious 
from his trials. 

But the words he listened to in the course of the cere- 
monies instructed him ; the hierophant alone had the 
right of pronouncing them, and it was not the least 
glory of his ministry. The old authors, however, have 
not preserved them, and we should be reduced to con- 
jecture if documents emanating from the Orphic sect 
did not furnish an equivalent. The Orphies were accus- 
tomed to engrave extracts from the poem to which they 
consigned the part of their exegesis concerning the 
travels of the soul, the descent into Hades, on plates 
of gold which they deposited in the tombs. They were 
secret instructions, since they were imprisoned with the 
body in its last resting-place, into which no human eye 
could penetrate from the day on which the corpse was 



EGYPT AND ELEUSINIAN MYSTERIES 59 

therein enclosed : " You will find (they said) a spring on 
the left in the domains of Hades, and near it a white 
cypress ; you will not approach that spring. You will find 
another which has its source in the lake of memory, and 
guardians stand in front of it. Then say — ' I am the 
Child of the Earth and of the starry Sky, but know that 
my origin is divine. I am devoured by and perish with 
thirst ; give me, without delay, the fresh water that flows 
from the lake of memory.' And they will give you to 
drink of the divine spring, and then you will reign with 
the others." In another fragment a friend undertakes 
to guide the pilgrim. " And when your soul has left 
the light of the sun, turn to the right as every wise man 
should," in order to avoid the white cypress and the 
fatal spring; " Farewell, thou who hast experienced 
what thou hadst never yet experienced, from a man thou 
hast become a god, thou art [white and pure] as a kid 
dipped in milk; farewell, farewell, thou who takest the 
right-hand path towards the fields and sacred woods of 
Proserpine." Elsewhere the soul stops in front of the 
spring, and talks with it. " * I am devoured by and 
perish with thirst.' 'Well, then, drink of my spring; 
I flow always to the right of the cypress. Who art 
thou? Who is thy father?' ' I am son of the Earth 
and of the starry Sky.' " A last extract describes his 
condition when he is at the end of his journey : " Pure, 
and issued from what is pure, I come towards thee, 
Queen of Hades, and towards you, Eucles, Euboleus, and 
towards you all, immortal gods, for I boast of belonging 
to your race. I have escaped the dread circle of pro- 
found grief, and with my swift feet have entered the 
desired realm, and have descended into the bosom of 
the Queen of Hades." The resemblance between the 
Orphic ideas and the Eleusinian dogmas is sufficiently 
close to lead us to think that the portions of the 
Orphic ritual so far discovered are analogous to the still 



6o NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

unknown formulas of the Eleusinian ritual. The words 
declaimed by the hierophant in a loud voice perfectly in 
tune, were the prayers, and the necessary instructions 
given to the soul of the initiated, so that he might know 
what each of the districts of the infernal regions was like, 
the dangers it concealed, and that had to be avoided, the 
roads that had to be traversed, the power of the beings 
he would have to encounter before he could be admitted 
to the presence of the goddess, and participate in the 
felicities she bestowed on the faithful." Amid a scene 
calculated to strike the senses and the imagination, the 
novice saw the life and adventures of the divinities who 
reigned over the lower world; he was admitted into 
their presence, and contemplated their images; he tra- 
versed their domain, and learned the all-powerful words 
which opened it to him. Was not that what he had 
come to ask of the goddesses of Eleusis ? Are not those 
revelations, the means and sure pledge of an eternal 
happiness, sufficient to explain the transports of joy to 
which the initiated gave themselves up ? Do they not 
at least justify the firm trust in the future which caused 
one of them to say, " Thanks to the mysteries, death for 
mortals is not an evil, but a good " ? 

It is necessary to be better informed than I am con- 
cerning the religions of Demeter and Cora to judge how 
closely their dogmas resemble those of the religions of 
Isis and Osiris. All the facts put forward by Foucart 
are true of the Egyptian Isis; the Hellenists must decide 
if the resemblance with the corresponding facts that he 
alleges of Demeter proves as much as I think it does. 
It seems certain to me that the Eleusinian mysteries are 
Egyptian by execution and intention ; Egyptian thought 
dominates them, and the manner in which the thought 
is expressed is Egyptian. The Egyptians, always occu- 
pied with the life beyond the grave, tried in very remote 
ages to teach men the art of living after death, and of 



EGYPT AND ELEUSINIAN MYSTERIES 61 

leading a life with the gods resembling existence on 
earth, and the pleasantest existence they could imagine. 
To attain it, it was necessary to take every precaution 
in this life, and to begin by becoming attached to some 
divinity able to protect those who acknowledged his 
sovereignty; it was usually a god who, having suffered 
death, had escaped it, Sokaris, Khontamentît, Phtah, 
Osiris : and the mortal was entitled the faithful servant 
of Sokaris, Khontamentît, Phtah, Osiris, according to 
which god he chose. He learned by heart the chapters 
which gave him entrance into the god's domain, for, 
once a mummy, he might forget them in the first 
troubles of the embalmment; therefore they were recited 
in his ear before he was carried to the tomb, and, to make 
more certain, a special work containing them was placed 
in his coffin; it was a " Book of the Dead," illustrated 
with vignettes, a real guide-book to Hades, in which the 
roads that led from our earth to all the paradises 
were described stage by stage. Like the hierophant of 
Eleusis, the Egyptian priest had to have a voice perfectly 
in tune for intoning the formulas, and the novice who 
repeated them after him had also to possess a voice 
equally in tune. Like him who was initiated into the 
Eleusinian mysteries, the Egyptian dead personage en- 
countered dangerous or salutary springs on his way, as 
well as monsters whom he pacified with his singing ; he 
went through opaque darkness, and at last reached fertile 
islands, brilliant with light, the meadows of sweet cypress, 
where his master, Osiris, offered him a peaceful asylum 
on condition of repeating the password. A long while ago 
I was struck with the Egyptian turn of the verses traced 
on the gold plaques of Petelia, 1 and I took them to have 
been borrowed from Egypt by the theologians of Magna 
Graecia. Such an opinion, coming from an Egyptolo- 

1 I borrowed them from Fr. Lenormant in order to quote them in 
my lectures at the Collège de France in 1887. 



62 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

gist, would have been suspected by the Hellenist as 
savouring of partiality; coming from a distinguished 
Hellenist, it will, I hope, receive a kinder welcome, and 
be discussed with the attention it deserves. 

The Mediterranean races showed a marked taste for 
Egyptian jewellery, scarabs, coarse glass ware, ivories, 
bronze and enamelled statuettes from the eighth to the 
fifth century b.c. Phoenician and Greek traders brought 
cargoes of them to all the coasts, to Asia Minor, to the 
islands of the Archipelago, to Carthage, Sardinia, Italy ; 
Egyptian statuettes, and other objects, have been found 
at Rome in the unrestored portions of the wall of Servius 
Tullius, evidently mingled with the earth when the foun- 
dations were laid, as preservative amulets. Religious or 
philosophical doctrines much resemble industrial pro- 
ducts : they are spread over the earth, and, when they 
are not expatriated by their own act, foreigners come 
to collect them in their native place. Many Greek 
scholars, philosophers and theologians travelled in 
Egypt at that time, and brought back ideas which some- 
times had a great vogue. What was stale and com- 
monplace on the banks of the Nile would be regarded as 
original and novel in the towns of the ^Egean Sea or 
the Ionian Coast. It was then that the Orphic doctrines 
prevailed; it was then, doubtless, that the Eleusinian 
mysteries assumed the form in which we know them, 
and which Foucart explains in so delightful a fashion. 



VII 

A FORGOTTEN CAPITAL OF PHARAONIC EGYPT 

Tell el-Armarna, the inaccurate name given to the 
site of one of the ancient capitals of the Pharaohs, is 
marked by a vast amphitheatre of low, sandy hills worn 
by water-courses, by a narrow strip of earth of meagre 
cultivation along the Nile, by three villages at intervals 
of a few miles from south to north, and near the largest 
a heap of broken walls running in every direction, by 
scattered bricks, fragments of limestone and granite, and 
by the half-filled trenches that distinguish the sites of 
excavations in Egypt. At the beginning of the nine- 
teenth century the preservation of the town was such 
that the direction of the streets and the contours of the 
houses and palaces could be distinguished : the members 
of the French commission drew a plan which was repro- 
duced in the works of Lepsius and Prisse d'Avennes. 
How comes it that what they saw has perished? The 
usurers and traders of Mellaoui provided themselves 
thence with materials for their buildings, the peasants of 
the district obtained thence great baskets of sebakh, the 
nitreous dust which is the manure of the Said, seekers 
after antiquities worked the site to secure antiques that 
sell easily, especially the blue, green, yellow, red, white, 
violet enamelled rings so beloved of the tourist; and 
lastly the discovery of a correspondence in cuneiform 
writing 1 and the imprudence of travellers in search of a 
good find, sent the natives into the field, with the result 

1 Cf. Chapter I. 
63 



64 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

that they have destroyed everything. When Flinders 
Pétrie went there to carry on excavations scarcely any- 
thing remained of what his predecessors had discovered. 
But all the same he set to work with his characteristic 
energy, and if he was compelled to confirm the disap- 
pearance of entire buildings in some places, he suc- 
ceeded in unearthing elsewhere documents of value for 
the history of Egypt and of the ancient world. 1 

That corner of the earth has known strange fortunes. 
In the beginning it was a dependency of Hermopolis and 
without a life of its own. The mountains which form 
its eastern boundary contain, it is true, quarries of a 
very pure and fine alabaster that had been worked from 
the time of the Memphian kings, but the port where the 
blocks were loaded was farther south, and the activity 
which the working of the quarries produced only affected 
that place. The amphitheatre of El-Amarna seems to 
have been, then as now, a moderately fertile province, 
sparsely populated, exposed to the nomad marauders of 
the outskirts of the desert. Suddenly, about the fifteenth 
century B.c., an eccentric Pharaoh, Amenôthês IV, took 
a violent liking to it, went to live there, laid out gardens, 
built palaces and temples, established his court and 
transferred the government there; from one day to the 
next à town sprang up where before there had only 
been obscure hamlets, and for about twenty years the 
destinies of the world hung on the spot. The earliest 
students to discover this fact and to try and find out the 
reason, were struck first by the strange physiognomy 
given to the sovereign and his family by contemporary 
artists, and then by the hatred shown, officially at least, 
by the chief personages of the state to the god of Thebes, 
Amonrâ, lord of Karnak. They put forth the most 
preposterous hypotheses to explain these anomalies, and 

1 W. M. Flinders Pétrie : Tell-el-Amarna, with Chapters by Prof. 
A. H. Sayce, F. LI. Griffith, E. G. J. Spurrell. 1894. 



A FORGOTTEN CAPITAL 65 

they made Amenôthês IV sometimes an eunuch, some- 
times a woman, although the monuments represented 
him dressed as a man and accompanied by a queen, 
whom he appeared to love affectionately. They were 
all in agreement in declaring him an idiot or a fanatic, 
or both together; as the god of whom he declared him- 
self the devoted servant was named Atonou, and, as 
Atonou is assonant with the name of the Phoenician 
Adonis, they imagined that he had tried to acclimatize 
an Asiatic worship in Egypt, or an ancient Egyptian 
worship modified by Asiatic ideas. But what motive 
could a Pharaoh of pure race have had for suddenly 
worshipping a strange divinity? He might have done 
so from his earliest childhood under the influence of a 
Syrian mother, whence the conclusion that Tîyi, the 
wife of Amenôthês III and the mother of Amenôthês IV 
was a Semitic princess. Anything and everything may 
be easily explained by a few hypotheses. 

The truth, as it now begins to be evolved from 
documentary evidence, is not very complicated. Tîyi is 
not a princess, nor did she come from Asia : she sprung 
from an Egyptian family who had no connection with 
the royal House, and it was probably love that gave her 
the rank of queen, usually attainable only by the 
daughters of the race of Pharaoh. The son she had 
by her husband grew to have a horror of the Theban 
Amon. Perhaps the priests were opposed to the choice 
of him as heir. Directly he was master he resolved to 
destroy their power, and he transferred his homage from 
their idol to Atonou, the Disk of the Sun, an ancient 
god of Heliopolis. It was a very serious step, for, in 
denying the religion of his ancestors, he excited the 
hostility of the richest priesthood in the world and, 
what was even more serious, the hatred of his own 
capital, for Thebes was the city of Amon before it was 
that of the Pharaohs. In Egypt, the city and its divine 
5 



66 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

patron were so closely united that to touch one was 
perforce to attack the other; neither Thebes, nor Mem- 
phis, nor the smallest village would have denied its god 
even to gain the favour of the sovereign. If Amen- 
ôthês had adopted the sun, Râ, Khopri, Atoumou, as 
worshipped at Heliopolis, he need only have migrated 
to Heliopolis and proclaimed it his capital, but as he 
chose a secondary form of the sun of Heliopolis, Heli- 
opolis, no more than Thebes, could renounce its master, 
and the only resource left was to build a new city 
where Atonou would have the supreme power. We do 
not know the motives that led him to choose the district 
of El-Amarna; he was probably attracted by the extent 
of the plain, by its central position in the kingdom, 
especially by the absence of important divinities or 
sanctuaries that would have to be dispossessed. He 
marked off a district from the nome of Heliopolis, and 
demonstrated its boundaries by stelae engraved on the 
rocks, and made of it a new nome which he called 
Khouît-Atonou, " the Horizon of the Solar Disk," like 
the town. About the same time he renounced the name 
of Amenôthês, which consecrated him to his enemy 
Amon, and desired to be called henceforth Khouniato- 
nou, " the Glory of the Solar Disk." Oriental monarchs 
never found any difficulty in improvising residences; 
Khouniatonou undertook to build the temple and the 
palace, and those about him did the rest. The temple 
was spread over an immense surface, of which the 
sanctuary, properly so called, only occupied a very 
small part; it was flanked by brick store-houses, and a 
huge wall surrounded the whole. It was of fine white 
limestone, but almost bare of ornament; there was not 
time to decorate it suitably. The palace was of brick, 
and consisted of spacious halls and of small chambers 
into which the servants were crowded. Columns sup- 
ported the chief apartments, those where the Pharaoh 



A FORGOTTEN CAPITAL 67 

gave audience, but the material of the partition 
walls and of the pillars was invariably covered with 
white stucco or lime-wash, on which scenes from 
private life were painted in bright colours. The pave- 
ment was painted like the walls. In one of the apart- 
ments, apparently used by the women, a picture of a 
rectangular basin filled with fish can still be seen. 
Tufts of water-plants and flowering shrubs adorn the 
banks, among which birds are flying and calves are 
frisking; small tables laden with fruits stand in rows 
to the right and left, and a file of negro and Syrian 
prisoners, separated by enormous arches, are displayed 
on the short sides. The tonality of the whole is clear 
and bright ; the animals are drawn with a breadth and 
freedom and facility that surprise and delight the visitor. 
Flinders Pétrie has picked up fragments of statues 
representing Khouniatonou, his wife, and the members 
of their family, all over the ruins. He has even found 
a plaster mask, so remarkably life-like that he does not 
hesitate to recognize it as the sovereign's death mask, 
taken a very few moments after death as a model 
for the sculptors who were to decorate the tomb. 
They are the most interesting pieces to study. The 
first, which go back to the beginning of the reign, are 
conceived in the conventional style customary for royal 
statues under the XVIIIth Dynasty. Amenôthês IV is 
scarcely to be distinguished from his father Amenôthês 
III; he has the regular and somewhat heavy features 
and the idealized body of the orthodox Pharaohs. We 
might say that in renouncing his name, he wished to 
renounce his face, for his portraits, at the time when he 
was named Khouniatonou, give him a paradoxical ap- 
pearance. They have a long, narrow head, culminating 
in a sugar loaf, a receding forehead, a large, aquiline, 
pointed nose, a small mouth, an enormous chin jutting 
forward awkwardly, and attached to a long, thin neck; 



68 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

no shoulders or muscles to speak of, but so round a 
chest, so balloon-like a stomach, such broad hips on such 
fat thighs, that we might imagine ourselves to be look- 
ing at a woman. The general outline easily lends itself to 
caricature, c^nd contemporary artists have so exagger- 
ated the details, intentionally perhaps, that it is almost 
grotesque; the man himself, however, had nothing 
ridiculous about him, and in some of his portraits he 
possesses a languid grace, as if due to delicate health, 
which is not without dignity. He seems to have been 
good and affectionate; he loved his wife passionately, 
and he associated her with the acts of his reign. If he 
went out to climb up to the temple, she accompanied 
him in a chariot. If he publicly honoured a servant, 
she stood by him and helped him to distribute the gold 
decorations. She worshipped the " Solar Disk " with 
him, she served him in the intimacy of private life when 
in the harem he laid aside the cares of public business, 
and they were so united that one bas-relief shows her 
seated lovingly on her husband's knees, a posture of 
which we do not know any other example. They had six 
daughters, whom they brought up to live with them 
in unrestrained familiarity; the girls accompanied their 
parents wherever they went, and played about the throne 
while they fulfilled their royal duties. The gentleness 
and gaiety of the masters was reflected in the life of 
the subjects; the pictures we have of it are filled with 
processions, cavalcades, banquets, amusements. The 
Pharaoh rewards the high priest Marirîya with golden 
collars for his services; the people dance round him 
with joy. Houîya returns from Syria, and solemnly 
offers the tribute collected during his inspection of the 
Asiatic provinces; the sovereign renders thanks to his 
god, carried in his palanquin on his officers' shoulders, 
to the singing of hymns and the swinging of large fans. 
Prince Aï marries the nurse of one of the princesses; 



A FORGOTTEN CAPITAL 69 

the whole town disports itself, and drinks deeply at the 
wedding. Do not imagine that such continual festivals 
were harmful to the administration of the State : 
Khouniatonou carefully watched over the foreign policy, 
and the prestige of Egypt suffered neither in Ethiopia 
nor in Syria. 

When examined at close quarters the ruins of the 
private dwellings are even more curious than those of 
the palace. They show us what a town was like at the 
time of the great Egyptian power, and how the people 
lived while its chiefs were enriching themselves with 
the treasures of Africa and Asia. Some of the houses 
evidently belonged to nobles, and furnish an idea of the 
comfort with which the wealthy surrounded themselves : 
lofty ceilings, supported on columns under which it was 
cool during the heat of the day; small bedrooms of a 
pleasant aspect; immense store-houses for provisions 
and material ; kitchens well supplied with stoves. The 
houses of the common people are small but convenient, 
and are much like the dwellings of a citizen in easy 
circumstances in Upper Egypt at the present day. The 
pictures drawn in the hypogeums complete the work of 
the excavations, and with their help we can restore in 
imagination the furniture and decoration. Fragments 
of plates and dishes and kitchen utensils supply positive 
information about their food. Flinders Pétrie collected 
necks of amphorae by the hundred, on which informa- 
tion as to their contents is stamped or written ; they are 
for the most part wines of different growths and years, 
but also palm wine, oil, honey, liqueurs, preserves, all 
of the best that was eaten and drunk at the tables of 
the Pharaohs. We can imagine the common people 
occupied in the employments usual in a big city at that 
period, but only two important industries have left 
sensible traces, that of the glass-maker and the potter. 
The Egyptians of the XVIIIth Dynasty were extremely 



70 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

fond of enamelled pottery : the instinct of physical 
cleanliness, which was strongly developed in them, made 
them greatly value for ordinary use vases and utensils 
and jewellery covered with enamel, which was as 
easy to keep clean and to wash as it was cool to look 
at and to touch. Flinders Pétrie discovered several 
places where glass and coloured enamels were worked, 
and he has reconstructed the manipulations in detail. 
He describes the ovens, the crucibles, some of which 
are still filled with vitreous paste, ashes, the refuse of 
the manufacture: analysis has revealed the composition 
of several kinds of coloured glass. It is a curious 
chapter in the history of ancient glass making, and it 
is to be wished that all directors of excavations would 
attach as much importance to the discovery of similar 
objects : we should soon come to know thoroughly the 
material and technique of the industries, the marvellous 
products of which are daily unearthed. Several of the 
sculptors* studios contain models, sketches, rough drafts, 
rapidly thrown off or retouched, for the unfinished 
statues no longer rare in our museums ; what they offer 
us that is new is a sufficiently considerable number of 
plaster castings. I obtained several pieces of the sort 
at Thebes, Abydos and Coptos, but they were mixed up 
with objects of such different dates that it was impos- 
sible to fix their period, and decide if they belonged to 
the Graeco-Roman time, or if they went back to the age 
of the Pharaohs. It must now be admitted that the 
sculptors of the great Theban epoch readily employed 
plaster castings, and several facts, recently ill under- 
stood, urge me to believe that the sculptors of Memphis 
employed it equally often and with equal skill. 

The bas-reliefs that decorate the tombs of El-Amarna 
are as eccentric in manner as the statues and paintings 
brought to light in the town. The pictures bear little 
resemblance to those of the Theban tombs of the same 



A FORGOTTEN CAPITAL 71 

century, and it has therefore been concluded that the 
religious revolution brought with it a revolution in art. 
But that is a manifest exaggeration, and as soon as the 
matter is thoroughly examined we are compelled to 
alter our opinion. The difference lies much more in the 
nature of the scenes than in the manner in which they 
are executed. In conventions, drawing, composition., 
the artists of El-Amarna do not differ in essentials from 
those who flourished in Thebes at that time. This is 
explained if we reflect on the conditions in which they 
were recruited. The king reserved for himself the men 
who had worked for his father, the Thebans or pro- 
vincials trained in the Theban school, and no detail is to 
be observed in his statues that distinguishes them from 
those of Amenôthês III : the perfection of both is 
similar. The contractors for the funeral ceremonies 
who undertook to prepare the tombs would not certainly 
have found the sculptors they needed in the locality 
itself : the people who had hitherto lived at El-Amarna 
were too poor to aspire to the luxury of a decorated 
tomb. The larger number of workmen must have been 
procured partly from Thebes and partly from Hermopo- 
lis, the nearest city; the provincials were naturally 
less skilful than the others, and, in fact, after a visit to 
the tombs of El-Amarna, we willingly admit that their 
technique is rough and awkward. They possess nothing 
that can be compared, even a long way off, with the 
bas-reliefs of Houîya or of Khâmhaît at Thebes. They 
please the eye by the variety of their subjects, and by 
the freedom of their method. According to tradition 
the dead, whose last dwelling-place they furnished, 
wished, in recalling the principal acts of their life, to 
assure their doubles of the possession of the rank and 
dignities they had enjoyed in this world; as they ought 
to find them again with the god of Khouîtatonou, they 
had their career at Khouîtatonou painted, their inter- 



72 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

views with the king, the rewards they had received, the 
ceremonial which had accompanied their visits to court. 
It is thus a question of archaeology, and not one of 
evolution in the development of Egyptian art. The 
honest artisans who covered the walls with their sketches 
only thought to interpret to the best of their ability the 
patterns that the master-designers, the ganouatiou, gave 
out to them, who themselves had only fitted the motives 
used at Thebes or in the rest of Egypt to the worship 
of Atonou and to the new city. 

The town prospered while its founder supported it; 
but that was for a very short time. Pétrie and Griffith 
have cleverly succeeded in restoring the chronology 
of that epoch ; they reckon that the king died in the 
eighteenth year of his reign. His daughters succeeded 
him in the order of primogeniture, or rather the hus- 
bands of his daughters. First Samankhkerîya, then 
Toutanoukhamanou, then Aï. Khouniatonou had only 
had one sincere believer in his religion — himself; when 
he died the zeal of the others cooled, and the wor- 
ship of Amon again prevailed. The work of numerous 
generations is not to be destroyed in a day, and 
Thebes had too long held the first rank for the caprice 
or hatred of one man to overturn her so quickly. 
Khouniatonou determined to replace her by a new city, 
and had he lived he would doubtless have persisted to 
the end in his desire to displace her. His successors, 
Thebans by origin, vassals of Amon by birth, had no 
motive in persevering. Samankhkerîya had probably 
only a very brief reign, but Toutanoukhamanou occupied 
the throne for some time, and he had not reigned for 
more than three or four years before he abandoned " the 
Horizon of the Disk " and the Disk itself. He returned 
to Thebes, took part in the ceremonies of the old wor- 
ship; his brother-in-law Aï, who succeeded him, acted 
in the same manner. The court followed their example, 



A FORGOTTEN CAPITAL 73 

and the town faded away as rapidly as it had blossomed 
forth. The life of the streets stopped, the palaces and 
temples were deserted, the tombs remained unfinished or 
unoccupied; its patron became again what he had been 
formerly, an adventurer god relegated to the third or 
fourth rank in the Egyptian Pantheon. The town 
vegetated for a short time longer, thanks to the in- 
dustries which had been planted there ; then the enamel 
factories were closed and the workmen migrated to 
Thebes or Hermopolis. " The Horizon of Atonou " was 
erased from the list of nomes, and soon nothing was 
left of what had for a moment been the capital of the 
empire, but a heap of falling ruins and two or three 
fellaheen villages scattered about the western bank of 
the Nile. The royal palace was not only abandoned, it 
was deliberately and purposely dismantled and despoiled 
of the works of art it contained. Only valueless objects 
were left behind, and among them a portion of the 
diplomatic correspondence carried on by Amenôthês III 
and Amenôthês IV with the governors of Syria, or with 
the independent sovereigns of Mitâni, Assyria and 
Chaldaea. 

A fortunate chance revealed to us the history of this 
ephemeral greatness, but during the forty centuries that 
ancient Egypt lasted how many of these capitals of a 
day must there not have been, called to life by a 
Pharaoh's caprice and left to decay by a Pharaoh's 
disdain ! The sovereigns who built the pyramids had 
each theirs, and Memphis itself, before becoming the 
metropolis of the whole country, was merely the 
temporary residence of Pioupi I, one of the most cele- 
brated monarchs of the Vlth Dynasty. The valley 
was sown with these dead or dying cities, and their 
fate suggested matter for melancholy reflections to 
moralists and poets: "I have heard what happened 
to our ancestors : their walls are destroyed, their place 



74 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

is vanished" A few escaped destruction, for example the 
residences of Sanouosrît (Ousirtasen) II and of Amen- 
emhâît III, which Pétrie has explored near the entrance 
of Fayoum. The houses there are almost intact, whole 
quarters of the city are still standing, and furniture 
abounds, chiefly that of the poor or of the lower middle 
classes, very valuable to us from its antiquity, for it 
goes back further than the thirteenth century B.c. 
The ruins of El-Amarna have suffered greatly from 
time and from men, but we know the exact date at 
which the town was built, as well as that at whicfi 
it was abandoned, the circumstances that favoured 
its rise and hastened its fall, the god worshipped 
there, the life led there by the people. The history 
of Egypt, when contemplated from a distance, seems 
uniform, accidents are effaced and disappear; but if we 
approach nearer, a multitude of details become detached 
from its course, and a multitude of incidents which 
break the monotony are distinguished. Leaving aside 
murders of princes and the dramas of the harem, 
Egypt's religious or political revolutions have been as 
numerous and as unexpected as those of modern empires. 
We know almost exactly what happened at El-Amarna 
under Amenôthês IV; many similar episodes will come 
to light when excavations carried on as conscientiously 
as those of Flinders Pétrie shall compel the earth to 
restore the documents it has so long kept hidden. 








.. -ii-* '1"S^: 




VIII 

THE TEMPLE OF DEÎR EL-BAHARÎ 

Travellers who visited the ruins of Thebes five or 
six years ago doubtless remember what a strangely 
desolate aspect the valley of Deîr El-Baharî then pre- 
sented. Portions of walls were seen sticking out of the 
sand in inextricable confusion, fragments of statues and 
columns lay about in company with two terraces placed 
one on the other, abutting on porticoes more than half 
buried under the rubbish; a vault might be seen, the 
dislocated blocks of which threatened to fall at the least 
movement; close by were granite doors framed in the 
ruins of delicately-sculptured white limestone partition 
walls, and dominating all stood a miserable tower of 
dried bricks of a dirty grey colour, the only fragment 
then standing of a Copt monastery built on the founda- 
tions of the pagan edifice. The physiognomy of the 
site is now completely changed. The tower has been 
demolished, and the sand no longer hides the balus- 
trades and columns. On the northern side of the valley 
a portico has been dug out of marvellous elegance and 
exquisite proportions; the best period of Greek art 
produced nothing of greater delicacy or charm. Naville 
and his lieutenants in three winters brought to light 
perhaps the most original monuments that are our 
legacy from the Pharaohs of the great Theban Dynas- 
ties. Mariette began the attack, and the result gained 
made him persevere in his enterprise even when money 
was lacking; Naville, better equipped, with more 

75 



76 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

resources and less burdened with administrative work, 
will leave nothing for future students to do. 1 

What has been found is the mausoleum of two kings, 
Thoutmosis I and Thoutmosis II, built by themselves, 
and of a queen, Hatshopsouîtou, daughter of one and 
wife of the other. Hatshopsouîtou appropriated it to 
herself, and allowed the men of the family only the 
strictly necessary space. On the death of her husband 
she reigned alone, and desiring to show posterity what a 
woman could do when entrusted with the administration 
of an empire, she engraved and painted pictures on the 
walls illustrating in detail her principal acts. Mariette 
published nearly all that illustrate the maritime expedi- 
tion to the land of incense; Naville unearthed others 
completing those which describe in detail the memorable 
voyage. Hatshopsouîtou is anxious to tell us herself 
that one day when she was praying in the temple of 
Amon, " her supplications ascended to the throne of the 
master of Karnak, and in the Holy of Holies an order 
was heard, a command of the god to explore the ways 
that led to Pouanît, to traverse the roads leading to the 
' Ports of Incense.' " The Theban priests could only 
procure the essences required for the sacrifices through 
foreign traders; and thus the essences were exposed to 
injury in the slow transit in Africa, and were soiled by 
the contact of impure hands. Besides, the traders con- 
fused, under the single name anatiou, substances of very 
different origin and quality, several of which could 
scarcely be regarded as perfumes, or were reputed not 
to be pleasing to the gods. One kind that is still found 
in Somaliland, and there only, pleased them more than all 
others; but " no one any longer ascends to the ' Forts,' 
none of the Egyptians, and if the ports are spoken 
of, it is only from hearsay." They were remembered 

1 G. Naville : Deîr El-Baharî, 1 892-1 893 ; Deîr El-Baharî, Part I, 
1893-1894; Deîr El-Baharî, Part II, 1894-1895, London. 



TEMPLE OF DEÎR EL-BAHARÎ 77 

as a region situated in the distant south or east. Amon 
undertook to describe it and reveal its whereabouts. 
" The ' Ports ' form a secret district of Tonoutir; it is, 
in fact, a place of delight. I created it, and wish to con- 
duct your Majesty thither, so that incense can be taken 
at will and vessels laden with it in all joy, living trees 
of incense and all the products of that land." Hât- 
shopsouîtou chose five sound ships, equipped them in 
the most approved fashion, loaded them with goods 
likely to find favour with the savages, and launched 
them in the Red Sea on the track of the incense. 

We do not know from what port the squadron set out, 
nor how many days it took to reach Pouanît. It passed 
Saouakîn, Massaouah ; it touched at the Ilîm, who in- 
habited the latitudes of Bab-el-Mandeb ; it crossed the 
strait, and at last reached the coast of Somali, the land 
which produced the incense. The barbarous region 
visited later by Greek and Roman merchants stretched 
from the bay of Zeilah to Ras-Hafoun. The first stations 
they encountered on issuing from the Red Sea, Avalis, 
Malao, Moundos, Mosyllon were unsafe, exposed road- 
steads; but beyond Mosyllon they found several creeks 
(wadys), of which the last, the Elephant river, situated 
between Ras-el-Fîl and Cape Guardafui, seems to have 
allowed of ships of shallow draught ascending it. It 
was there, probably, that Hatshopsouîtou's sailors made 
land. They went up the river as far as the point where 
the tides are no longer felt, and stopped in sight of 
a village scattered along the bank amid sycamores and 
palms. Round huts were to be seen with conical 
roofs, and no opening except the door; they were 
perched on piles as a protection from wild beasts or 
floods, and they were entered by movable ladders. 
Oxen lying under the trees chewed the cud. The natives 
were tall, slender, and of a colour varying between brick- 
red and a brown so dark as to be almost black. The 



78 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

beard ended in a point, and the hair was sometimes cut 
short and sometimes arranged in rows of small curls, 
or fell over the shoulders in thin locks. The men's 
costume was merely a waist-cloth, the women's a yellow 
sleeveless robe, tied at the waist, falling half-way down 
the legs. The commander of the squadron disembarked 
at first with eight soldiers. He displayed the various 
gifts on a low table : five bracelets, two gold collars, a 
poniard with its sheath and belt, a battle-axe, eleven 
strings of glass beads. The people, dazzled by the sight 
of so many precious things, with their chief at their 
head, ran to meet him, and showed a very natural aston- 
ishment. "How," they asked, "did you reach this 
country unknown to men ? Have you descended by the 
paths of the sky, or have you sailed by water on the land 
of Tonoutir? You have followed the road of the Sun, 
for no one can be out of the way of the king of the land 
of Egypt, and his breath is our life." Their chief was 
named Parihou, and was distinguished from his subjects 
by a boomerang he brandished in his hand, by his 
dagger and glass necklace; his right leg was hidden 
by a sort of sheath made of rings of a yellow metal, 
probably gold. His wife, Atouî, possessed the sort of 
beauty which is pleasing in those countries, a greasy 
puffiness in which the lines of the body are lost under 
a mass of flesh. The first courtesies exchanged, the 
Egyptians began on serious business. They set up a 
tent in which they stored the wares they had brought, 
and to prevent temptation surrounded it with a cordon 
of troops. The principal conditions of the bargain were 
settled at a banquet; each article was paid for immedi- 
ately on delivery. For several days there was a con- 
tinual procession of persons driving donkeys laden with 
produce. The purchases of the Egyptians consisted of 
a little of everything : elephants' teeth, gold, ebony, 
cassia, myrrh, baboons and apes, greyhounds, leopard 



TEMPLE OF DEÎR EL-BAHARÎ 79 

skins, oxen, slaves, even thirty-one incense-trees up- 
rooted with their mould and transplanted in baskets. 
The stowage was long and difficult; when there was no 
more room on board and the ships were filled to over- 
flowing, they set sail and steered for the north. 

On their return the queen held high festival in 
their honour; the Theban troops came out to meet them ; 
the royal flotilla escorted them to the landing-stage of 
the temple, where they formed in procession to go and 
offer their booty to the god. The good people of Thebes, 
assembled to see them, admired the procession, the bar- 
barous hostages, the incense-trees, the incense itself, the 
cats, the giraffe, the oxen, which the chronicles of the 
time, with the usual official exaggeration, reckon by 
hundreds and thousands. The trees were planted at 
Deîr El-Baharî, and a sacred garden was improvised for 
them; square trenches were dug in the rock and filled 
with earth, and being well watered they flourished there. 
In the course of his excavations Naville found the drain- 
ing wells, the mud they contained, the vegetable rubbish 
heaped in them. The big piles of fragrant vegetable 
matter became the object of special care ; Hatshopsouîtou 
? gave a silver-gilt bushel measure to gauge the mass of 
gums, the first time the perfumes were measured for 
Amon, lord of Karnak, master of the heaven, and pre- 
sent to him the marvels that Pouanît produced. Thot, 
the lord of Hermopolis, registered the amounts in writ- 
ing, the goddess Safkhîtâboui audited the accounts. Her 
Majesty made an aromatic essence with her own hands 
with which to anoint her person ; she exhaled the odour 
of the divine dew, its perfume penetrated to Pouanît, 
her skin shone like gold, and her face like the stars in 
the large Festival Hall." The claims of piety satisfied, 
those of coquetry had their turn, and the woman reap- 
peared beneath the monarch. The bas-reliefs of Deîr El- 
Baharî show the little squadron going with full sail 



8o NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

towards the unknown, its arrival at the end of its 
voyage, the meeting with the natives, the emphatic 
palavers, the bargain freely concluded, and thanks to 
the minute care with which the smallest details of the 
action are drawn, we assist as if we had been present at 
the various operations comprised in the maritime life 
not only of the Egyptians, but of other Eastern nations. 
The Phoenicians, when they adventured into the distant 
waters of the Mediterranean, must certainly have 
equipped and managed their ships in a similar manner. 
The scenery of the places on the Grecian and Asiatic 
coasts on which they disembarked is not the same as 
that of Pouanît, but they used the same objects of barter, 
and they acted in regard to the tribes of Europe exactly 
as the Egyptians did in regard to the barbarians of the 
Red Sea. 

The honour of discovering this chapter of history 
belongs almost entirely to Mariette. 1 One thing, how- 
ever, belongs to Naville and to him alone : a series 
of pictures illustrating and describing the circum- 
stances that preceded and accompanied the birth of 
the queen. The action passes partly among the gods, 
partly among mortals. We learn how one night the 
Princess Ahmôsis, wife of the Pharaoh, Thoutmôsis I, 
reposing in the harem, was suddenly awakened by a 
bright light and a strong perfume. The god Amonrâ 
had deserted his sanctuary of Karnak for her; after 
honouring her with his caresses, he announced to her 
that a child would be born of his divine love who would 
have a glorious reign and a long life " on the throne of 
the Horus of the living." He then vanished, and in the 
next picture Ahmôsis had reached the term of her preg- 
nancy. The guardian divinities of women in travail 
lead her gently to her bed of pain, and the expression 
of fatigue on her features, the languishing charm of her 
1 Mariette: Deîr El-Baharî, Leipzig, 1876. 



TEMPLE OF DEÎR EL-BAHARÎ 81 

whole person, makes her portrait a fine piece of sculp- 
ture. The child, the daughter, who, in the near future, 
will be the Queen Hatshopsouîtou, enters the world amid 
shouts of joy; propitious genii receive her; goddesses 
give her suck, gods give her a royal education. Years 
pass by; she is the heir of the Egyptian throne, the 
successor appointed to reign. Her father, Thoutmôsis, 
summons the delegates of the country and presents 
her to them. He enumerates her titles in long flowery 
orations, and places the pschent on her head; she is 
thenceforth Pharaoh, and she tries her best to dissimu- 
late that she is a woman. She modifies her name, Hat- 
shopsouîtou, which means the chief of the august favour- 
ites among the women, by a masculine termination that 
changes the signification into the chief of the august 
favourites. In the public ceremonies she wears the cos- 
tume of a man; on the monuments her chest is bared, 
her bosom flat, her hips slender, she wears a short waist- 
cloth, the diadem or helmet is placed on smooth hair, a 
beard is fastened to her chin ; indeed, she keeps nothing 
of the woman except the habit of speaking of herself 
in the feminine gender on the inscriptions. These curi- 
ous scenes of divine marriage, destined to attach the 
child who is to be the legitimate ruler of the city directly 
to the god of the city, are found in two other monu- 
ments of a different epoch, and perhaps other examples 
will be discovered; in the sanctuary of Louxor it is the 
Pharaoh Amenôthês III ; in that of Erment it is Ptolemy 
Caesarion, the son of Caesar and Cleopatra, whose birth 
is explained in this mysterious manner. 

According to the theory of that time, the king 
descended directly from the Sun, the god who created 
the world, and was the first to reign over the valley of 
the Nile. As no one who did not touch the divine race 
at some point could be Pharaoh, the founders of Dynas- 
ties supplied the deficiencies of their nobility by invent- 
6 



82 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

ing extraordinary genealogies which attached them from 
on high to a former Dynasty, especially by marriage 
with one of the numerous princesses who belonged to 
the harem of their predecessors. The nobility of each 
member of a family and his right to power were commen- 
surate with the quality of the solar blood which flowed 
in his veins; he who inherited it from both father 
and mother took precedence of him who held it only 
from either father or mother. But one of the most 
strictly observed of Egyptian laws intervenes there to 
establish distinctions which no longer hold in our civil- 
ization. The most sacred marriage was that between 
brother and sister, and it acquired the highest degree of 
perfection if the brother and sister in question were 
themselves the children of a similar marriage. This 
peculiarity of Egyptian manners, which seems to us a 
refinement of incest, was regarded as an institution of 
divine origin, most fitting to preserve the purity of the 
race. It produced important consequences for the his- 
tory of the country, and a great number of legal disposi- 
tions or fictions destined to palliate its effect on questions 
of the royal succession, or to supplement the lack of 
legitimacy which it brought in its train, to the detriment 
of the heirs male. If, for example, as his heir, a sove- 
reign had a son born of a slave or of a concubine of 
inferior rank, chosen at hazard among the people, and a 
daughter born of his union with one of his sisters by 
his father and mother, she was really the heir designate, 
and the boy took lower rank. They were married, how- 
ever, but their children, having as father a prince crossed 
with the common people, and mortal, were only hybrids 
compounded of less pure matter. Then the ancestral 
god had to interfere. Amon deigned to descend to 
earth, and taking the shape of the husband, united him- 
self with the woman. The offspring of these supernatural 
relations was of the pure race of the Sun, and could give 



TEMPLE OF DEÎR EL-BAHARÎ 83 

birth to legitimate princes or princesses. Thoutmôsis I 
was only of half solar blood, for his mother was an 
obscure concubine, and his wife Ahmôsis was born of 
brother and sister parents, King Amenôthês I and 
Queen Ahhotpou II; to compensate for his inferiority 
the assistance of Amon was called in, and therefore we 
see at Deîr El-Baharî the strange scenes discovered by 
Naville. 



IX 

A TRILINGUAL INSCRIPTION IN PRAISE OF C. CORNELIUS 
GALLUS, PREFECT OF EGYPT 

It seems very unlikely that a hieroglyphic inscription 
could help to determine a date in the life of a Latin 
author; but such an event has just occurred. Cap- 
tain Lyons, to whom the Egyptian Government recently 
entrusted the examination of the sub-structure of the 
island of Phike, came across, in the course of his work, 
two pieces of a sandstone stela, used at that time by the 
inhabitants to support the wall of a house. They pre- 
serve the remains of several inscriptions, one above the 
other, the first in Egyptian, the second in Latin, and 
the third in Greek. All are in praise of C. Cornelius 
Gallus, son of Cneius, knight, in his lifetime, statesman, 
general, and poet. He was born at Frejus, in Gaul, and 
was a school-fellow of Virgil; he was thirty-nine years 
old when the favour of Augustus appointed him the 
first Roman governor of the province of Egypt. The 
successive defeats of Cleopatra and of Antony caused 
rebellions that it was his chief duty to quell. The task 
was easy in the neighbourhood of Alexandria and 
Memphis, the districts nearest to the sea; but things 
were more troublesome in the Said, and the rebels were 
only put down after some hard fighting. 

The views held by the races who dwelt there were due 
to their political condition. In spite of ten centuries 
of humiliation, they could not forget that they had for- 
merly ruled the whole valley, and that their city of 

84 



A TRILINGUAL INSCRIPTION 85 

Thebes had possessed the world. When, after the fall 
of Ramses, the supremacy devolved on the cities of the 
Delta, Memphis, Tanis, Bubastis, Sais, they desired to 
have their own lords, first the high-priests of Amon, 
then princes in whom the blood of the high-priests was 
mingled with that of the Ethiopian Pharaohs. They 
constituted a kind of autonomous state, semi-theocratic 
and semi-warlike, hostile to the usurpers of the north, 
and continually fighting them to defend their independ- 
ence. Psammetichus, Necho, Amasis, the most cele- 
brated representatives of the last national Dynasties, 
were not obeyed on account of their personal title, but 
because they married princesses in whom alone the 
South recognized the right to reign over them ; while 
elsewhere they were recognized in their own right, in 
the Thebaïd they were tolerated by right of their wives. 
When the last of them died without issue, there were 
found among the descendants of the old feudal nobility 
persons who declared that some far-off alliance united 
them to one or other of the families that had formerly 
worn the double crown ; they entered upon the heritage 
of the Thebans, and became the champions of Pharaonic 
legitimacy against foreign conquerors, Persians, or 
Macedonians. The fellaheen of the Said seemed un- 
touched by outside influences. They submitted to them 
because they did not feel themselves strong enough to 
throw them off, and outwardly accepted the modifica- 
tions imposed by them on their political or private life. 
They paid the tax, rendered military service, conformed 
to the rites of the new administration, wrote the names 
of the Achaemenidse and Ptolemies at the head of their 
decrees, or on the walls of their temples ; but their obedi- 
ence ended with these outward observances, and they 
kept to their former customs and ideas in everything not 
expressly commanded by the foreign governments. 
When the Greek strategus had collected the taxes, and 



86 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

settled business about which they were compelled to con- 
sult him, they returned to their usual way of life, which 
contained all the forms used in the Egypt of the Thout- 
rnosis or Ramses. The Greek was no longer the real 
head of the state for them ; the true ruler was the noble, 
or the hereditary priest, and, if he chanced to have a 
few drops of the blood royal in his veins, he was the 
rightful king whom they reverenced secretly until the 
day when some fortunate circumstance might give 
them courage to declare him king de facto, and to 
crown him publicly. At least a century and a half 
before the death of Cleopatra two of those claimants 
were successful in rousing the city of Thebes itself, 
and they succeeded each other on the throne while the 
Ptolemies were quarrelling in the north. They were 
veritable Pharaohs, with cartouches, sceptres in the 
hand, the uraeus on the forehead, the traditional helmets 
and crowns; they held sway only over a half-dozen 
towns or villages, but the first princes of the Xlth or 
XVIIth Dynasties had begun by being equally unim- 
portant petty kings, and their original weakness did 
not prevent them from making the nomes into a united 
state, and then forming an immense empire? They 
had not time to strengthen and extend their authority; 
Ptolemy Epiphanes laid his hand on Thebes, and 
chastised the rebels in a cruel manner. He did not 
succeed in crushing the spirit of independence that 
animated the land, and there were rebellions after his 
death, the last of which was only put down by Ptolemy 
Auletes at the cost of a bloody war. Thebes suc- 
cumbed, after a long siege, in 67 ; her walls were razed 
to the ground, her population scattered. She never 
recovered the blow then inflicted. 

Strabo attributes the insurrection which broke out 
against the Romans in the south directly after the con- 
quest to the burden of the heavy taxes. It is more prob- 



A TRILINGUAL INSCRIPTION 87 

able that the nomes of the Said profited by the disorder 
preceding Cleopatra's death to drive out the Greek 
garrisons and restore the local Dynasties. When Alex- 
andria was taken, and Egypt annexed to the Empire, 
they naturally refused to pay to the new master the 
tribute they had refused to the old. They had, doubt- 
less, only confused ideas as to what Rome was; they 
merely knew that it was situated somewhere beyond 
the seas, and believed that the distance would save them 
from her attacks. Gallus was forced to carry on the 
campaign with great zeal in order to gain possession 
of a people who would not bow to his authority : " C. 
Cornelius, son of Cneius Gallus, Roman knight, the 
first prefect of Alexandria and Egypt after the defeat 
of the kings by Caesar, son of the divine Julius, for 
having subdued the rebellion of the Thebaïd in a fort- 
night, during which he twice defeated the enemy in 
drawn battle, for having taken five towns, Borêsis, 
Coptos, Keramîké, Diospolis the Great, Ophiaeon, and 
having killed the leaders of those rebellions, lor having 
been the first to lead an army beyond the cataract of the 
Nile, to which place neither the standards of the Roman 
people, nor of the Egyptian kings, had penetrated, after 
having subdued the Thebaïd, a terror common to all 
the kings, heard near Philae the envoys of the king of 
the Ethiopians, received that king under the protection 
of the Roman people, placed a vassal prince in the Tria- 
contaschene on the frontier of Ethiopia [erected this 
stela] to the gods of the country, and propitious to the 
Nile [as a thanksgiving]." This refers to the taking 
possession and the organization of the territories that for 
nearly seven centuries to come belonged to the Caesars, 
and then to the Byzantine Emperors. The Pharaoh of 
Ethiopia wished to conciliate his neighbour, and sud- 
denly dispatched an embassy to him to knit up amicable 
relations. Gallus pretended to see a sign of subjection 



88 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

in this proceeding, but the different terms he employs 
in the Latin and in the Greek in order to express his 
thought, prove that he knew the truth. In one he 
speaks of the protection and guardianship accepted by 
the sovereign ; in the other he merely observes that the 
king has proposed to him to be his guest, and he gives 
the pretended declaration of vassalage its character of 
an offer of consulship. Dion Cassius explains that the 
enemies of Cornelius Gallus later accused him to Augus- 
tus of affecting the style of a king rather than that of a 
simple governor, and, in support of their words, quoted 
the inscriptions engraved on the facing of the pyramids 
of Gizeh. Displaced, recalled to Rome, and feeling him- 
self a ruined man, he killed himself to escape punish- 
ment, the first example of those suicides that increased 
so greatly from the time of the rule of Tiberius. 
Augustus complained that he had been robbed of his 
vengeance. The inscriptions of the pyramids no longer 
exist, but those of Philse offer a good sample of what 
they must have been, and their tone shows that the man 
had a good opinion of himself. The language is firm, 
and the turns of expression exaggerated, as in most of 
the inscriptions of that period; but in reading them 
it is easy to imagine that Augustus may have felt some 
anxiety about the fidelity of a general who knew so 
well how to extol his own merits. 

It is difficult for a contemporary not to be reminded 
of that more modern inscription found in a good posi- 
tion on the inner post of the great door at Philae. 
Eighteen centuries after the Gaul, Cornelius, other 
Gauls, sent by chance to Nubia, and wishing to leave 
behind a souvenir of their presence, recorded in lapidary 
style how in " the year VI of the Republic, the 12th 
Messidor, a French army, commanded by Bonaparte, 
landed at Alexandria. Twenty days later the army, 
having put the Mamelukes to flight at the Pyramids, 



A TRILINGUAL INSCRIPTION 89 

Desaix, commander of the first division, pursued them 
beyond the cataracts, where he arrived the 13th 
Nîvose of the year VII." The French inscription is 
simpler than the Latin, but the sentiment at base is the 
same in both. In this age of rapid communication we 
regard the First Cataract as a place rather distant from 
London or Paris, but to be reached in ten days by any 
one who understands how to arrange the journey. The 
temples of Philas are visited by periodical caravans of 
cheap tourists, and every winter the Pronaos is the scene 
of almost as many picnics as of offerings and sacrifices 
in pagan times. In the time of Augustus the island was 
literally at the end of the world, and if it was not classed 
among fabulous lands, it was placed at the extreme 
borders of the actual world, at the point where incredible 
marvels began. Any number of stories were told of the 
height of the cataract, the volume of the water, its 
deafening noise, the boldness with which the dwellers 
on the banks descended it; beyond were the deserts of 
Africa, whence some new monster constantly appeared, 
regions haunted by sphinxes and onocentaurs, overrun 
by tribes of Oreillards and Sciapodes. Desaix's French- 
men did not believe those tales, but the Voyage of 
Denon, or the Volumes of the Description, betray the 
influence of those memories of classical antiquity, and 
the feelings with which they planted their flags on the 
rocks where the legions had formerly planted their 
eagles. Both the Romans and the French had success- 
fully accomplished in a few weeks what had seemed an 
almost impossible enterprise. We can well understand 
that they did not wish the memory of it to be lost. 
Cornelius Gallus narrated it in three languages, so 
that none who came after him should fail to understand. 
The stela must have had a good position, and above the 
inscription was a picture which attracted attention ; it 
presented to our admiration a rider crushing fallen 



go NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

barbarians under his horse's hoofs. It would be inter- 
esting to know the exact spot where the fragments were 
found; the details of the discovery might help us to 
learn if the stela was spared, and if it survived its 
builder, or if Augustus ordered it to be destroyed by the 
new prefect, so that the memory of the victory might be 
wiped out in the very place where the conqueror had 
desired to perpetuate it. 



X 

ON AN EGYPTIAN MONUMENT CONTAINING THE NAME 
OF ISRAEL x 

The gentle Menephtah, King of Egypt, was at least 
once in his life greatly alarmed when the Libyans 
invaded the eastern districts of the Delta, and pushed 
their vanguard as far as the neighbourhood of Mem- 
phis. He assembled his army, the native soldiers, the 
negro and Syrian battalions, his Shardanes guards; he 
marched to the encounter of the enemy, made all pre- 
parations for a decisive battle, but at the moment of 
entering on it he was seized with a very natural emotion, 
or his generals were for him. In his youth he had 
followed the army under the command of his father, 
the famous Ramses, and had borne himself in the 
fight as bravely as any, but forty years had elapsed 
since then ; he was no longer young, and had laid aside 
arms, and might well ask what sort of a figure he would 
now make on the war chariot in active fight. But the 
king was eager to lead the troops himself, and all who 
had known Ramses recalled the story of his prowess 
at Quodshou, when, alone with his squire Manouna, he 
charged the chariots of the Khâti eight times in succes- 
sion. It was a young man's exploit that the seventy- 
years-old Menephtah could scarcely repeat, and yet 
his absence at the moment of the decisive blow might 
disconcert the soldiers and diminish their courage. The 
gods who in those days interfered in the affairs of this 
world much more than is believed, intervened to bring 
him out of the awkward position and to save his honour 

1 W. Flinders Pétrie : "Egypt and Israel," in the Contemporary 
Review, May 1896 ; reprinted in Six Temples at Thebes, London, 1897. 

9 1 



92 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

and dignity. The old king thought he saw in a dream 
a gigantic figure of Phtah rise up before him and pre- 
vent him from advancing. " Remain at Memphis," it 
cried, and held out to him the curved sword of the 
Pharaohs. "Be not discouraged!" His Majesty was 
naturally surprised. " But what am I to do?" " Send 
on your infantry," replied the god, "and let a large 
number of charioteers go in advance to the borders of 
the territory of Piriou." Menephtah did as Phtah said. 
He stayed in the town, sent his generals into danger, 
and when they had won the battle, returned triumphant 
to Thebes. 

Priests, nobles, citizens, the poorer folk, everybody 
welcomed him with sincere enthusiasm, and the court 
historiographers took a great deal of trouble to invent 
new epithets in order to show posterity what a great 
warrior he was. The journal of the campaign was 
posted up in many places; in the temple of Memphis 
out of gratitude for the service rendered by Phtah, 
in the temple of Amon at Karnak, and in all places 
where narratives of the sort would be likely not to pass 
unnoticed. In one of the edifices built a century and a 
half before by the celebrated Amenôthês III, on the 
left bank of the Nile, there was a colossal stela of grey 
granite. Menephtah took possession of it, turned the 
side which bore the panegyric of his predecessor to the 
wall, and engraved on the unused side an inscription 
lately discovered by Flinders Pétrie. It is a long hymn 
in his praise, in a style at times emphatic; we read 
of the arrival of the Libyans, their defeat, their head- 
long flight, the impression of terror produced on the 
tribes of the desert by the news of the disaster. " Their 
bands repeated his exploits to each other : * Nothing 
similar has struck us since the age of Râ, the Sun!' 
And all the old men said to their sons : ' Unfortunate 
are the Libyans, their life is over. We can no longer 



AN EGYPTIAN MONUMENT 93 

walk across our fields without fear, our security has been 
snatched from us in a single day; the Tahonou have 
been, as it were, devoured by the flames in a single year, 
Soutkhou, our god, has deserted our general, and his 
encampments have been taken by assault. There is no 
one to carry the bales in these days; to hide is all that 
is left us, and we shall only find safety within walls.' 
Egypt, on the contrary, was full of gaiety, and its 
inhabitants cried out to one another : ' Now we can 
move and march at ease along the roads, for there is 
no more any fear in men's hearts.' The fortified posts 
are abandoned, the citadels are opened, the police patrols 
sleep instead of going their rounds, the loopholes of 
the walls are empty in the sunshine until their guards 
awake. The soldiers are sleeping, the sentries and 
ghafirs are sowing in the meadows, the cattle return 
to the pastures, there are no fugitives on the high waters 
of the river, and people are no longer heard screaming 
in the night: 'Stop!' or 'Come, come!' Every one 
goes singing, and there is neither lamentation nor sigh- 
ing; the cities are as if freshly restored, and he who 
reaps will eat of his own harvest." And abroad, Egypt, 
believed by her Asiatic rivals to be ruined, regained 
her prestige at one stroke. " The great and the noble 
are brought low; none among them lifts his head any 
longer among the nomads, for, now that the Libyans 
are destroyed, the Khâti are peaceful, the land of Canaan 
is reduced to subjection, the people of Ascalon and of 
Gezer are led into captivity, the city of Ianouâmîm is 
laid low, those of Israîlou are destroyed, there is no 
particle of them left. Kharou, Southern Syria, is [sad] 
as the widows of Egypt, and all the lands are united 
in peace," under the hand of Pharaoh. 

In hieroglyphic characters Israîlou is the exact 
equivalent of the biblical Israel, and it is the first time 
that the name appears on the Egyptian monuments. 



94 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

For the past sixty years many attempts have been made 
to find it, or for lack of it, one of the terms formerly 
employed to indicate all or part of the Hebrews. The 
most important was that of Chabas, who, about 1864, 
seeing certain people called the Apourîou mentioned 
several times over in the documents of the time of 
the Ramses, recognized in them the Hebrews; these 
Apourîou made bricks, and as they were slaves, helpers, 
or workmen of the Egyptians, it was simple enough to 
recall the early chapters of the Book of Exodus, where 
the misery of the descendants of Jacob is described in 
forcible terms. The identification, which was very 
favourably welcomed at first, is now rejected by most 
of those who have knowledge in such matters. Later 
it was noticed in different quarters that many of the 
names enumerated in the lists of Thoutmôsis III, ]osk- 
oupîlou, Jakob-îlou, contained the element Joseph or 
Jacob, joined to one of the words which express the con- 
cept of the divinity among Semitic peoples, and it is 
concluded that they preserved the memory of at least two 
of the clans which later constituted the Hebrew people, 
those of Joseph-el and of Jacob-el. 1 It is clear then how 
very little information about the most ancient history 
of the Jewish race is to be gathered from the inscrip- 
tions. It is not that the names of cities or nations 
mentioned in the Bible are lacking in the annals of a 
Thoutmôsis or a Ramses, but they always apply to 
towns which were in existence before the occupation of 
the Land of Promise, or to tribes which suffered from 
that occupation and tried to prevent it. Gaza figures in 
the catalogue of them, as well as Ascalon, Joppa, Gezer, 
Mageddo, Taanak, Damas, the Amorrheans, the Hit- 
tites; Jerusalem herself reappeared under the original 
form of Ourousalîmou, and it is possible to reconstruct 
something of her history in the fourteenth century B.c. 
1 Cf. Groff : Œuvres diverses^ Vol. i, pp. 1-23. 






AN EGYPTIAN MONUMENT 95 

It has all served and still serves to re-establish piece by 
piece the stage on which Israel afterwards played the 
chief part ; Israel itself, and even its name, is obstinately 
hidden. There is nothing strange in that. By the 
side of Egypt, Chaldaea, and Syria, Israel was a very 
insignificant personage, even when ruled by the most 
energetic of his kings; all the more then when he was 
still only a serf lodged in a corner of the Delta, and 
then a wanderer in the Arabian Desert. He was lost 
in the crowd of supernumeraries, and if circumstances 
drew the attention of his companions or rulers to him, 
it was only for a moment, between two events which 
then seemed of more vital interest. The inscriptions or 
the annals have only fugitive records of him, but the 
terrible ravages undergone by the temples of Egypt 
make it scarcely surprising if we do not find much about 
him in the fragments of inscriptions that have escaped 
destruction. The most extraordinary thing is not that 
we should find nothing about the Hebrews, but rather 
that we should find anything. 

The mention of Israîlou in Menephtah's inscription is 
then a piece of good luck; but what historical benefit 
is to be derived from it? Appearing as it does in a 
flood of pure rhetoric, it teaches us two certain facts, 
the existence of a tribe of Israel, and a defeat recently 
sustained by that tribe. The scribe who composed 
Menephtah's hymn, employs in describing the check 
expressions which might lead us to see in it a disaster, 
but it is only one of the exaggerations common to his 
kind. The inscriptions are filled with nations that each 
Pharaoh in his turn annihilated without their suffering 
much harm, and for a tribe to have lost a few men in a 
skirmish was sufficient for a court poet to pay the 
sovereign the compliment of having destroyed it. 
Where did these Israîlou live ? What misdeeds of theirs 
had drawn on them the chariots and bowmen of Egypt ? 



9 6 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

The order in which the other peoples are mentioned 
indicates that they inhabited Southern Syria; they come 
after Askalani, the Ascalonians, after the Gezer that 
still exists near Ascalon at Tell-Djezer, after Ianouâmîm 
that other documents seem to locate in the mountains 
of Judah, and it only remains for us to imagine that 
they are the whole or a part of the children of Israel 
who took refuge near Kadesh-Barnea, after the exodus 
from Egypt. It would then be but a short step to 
declare that the disaster of which they are said to be the 
victims is the persecution of the u Pharaoh who knew 
not Joseph." In those five words we should have an 
allusion to the Egyptian version of the Exodus current 
at the court of Menephtah. In fact an old tradition 
identifies Menephtah with the prince who was hostile 
to the Jews and quarrelled with Moses. Other hypo- 
theses are possible, and have been examined by students 
with the text of the inscription before them. Flinders 
Pétrie, for instance, declares that Israel was at that 
time divided into two principal groups, one of which 
had come down to the banks of the Nile and was living 
there at the time of the Libyan war, while the other had 
stayed in Palestine and continued to lead a nomadic 
life between Hebron and the plains of Jezreel. The 
Israel forgotten in the land would be the Israel whom 
Menephtah punished so severely, and of whose existence 
he tells us. Personally I have no reason to adopt one 
version rather than the other; I merely record the fact 
that Israel is revealed to us for the first time on a con- 
temporary, or very nearly contemporary, document con- 
cerning deeds related by Israelite chroniclers in the 
Book of Exodus, and express regret that the mention 
of it by the Egyptian writers should be so brief. 

I fear that others will not be contented with so slight 
a result, and that the five words of the Egyptian pane- 
gyric will become the subject of a whole literature. 



XI 

COPTOS 

There was not much to be seen of Coptos when I 
visited it for the first time fifteen years ago. It con- 
sisted of two or three villages of low huts, a few irregular 
mounds of earth on which were copings of walls either 
of brick or of small stones; in the centre was a vast, 
almost empty, site where a temple had once stood; 
on the west were the remains of a granite door in fine 
Pharaonic work, a bridge thrown over a canal, and inter- 
secting dikes, while on the east and north was an 
immense Roman rampart, flanked by towers partly built 
in the walls, and near one of them an enormous breach, 
doubtless the opening through which Diocletian's 
legions forced their way into the town sixteen centuries 
ago. A few blows of the pick-axe brought fine copper 
utensils of the Coptic period to the surface here and 
there, which should be still in the museum. About 
1884 I cleared out, in five or six days, a temple corridor 
where the hieroglyphic inscriptions of Caligula were 
put over Greek sgraffite drawn by pilgrims in the time 
of one of the later Ptolemies. Whenever I spent a few 
hours there, I picked up important inscriptions, statues, 
stelae, bronzes, stuffs, hundreds of small objects. I 
should have organized extensive works there had I 
possessed a little more money than the ,£1100 or ^1200 
of which the budget for excavations then consisted. 
Flinders Pétrie has realized what was only an empty 
dream for me. In the course of six weeks he found 
7 97 



9 8 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

enough material there to enable him to write the history 
of the ancient town and of one of its chief temples. 1 

Coptos is situated at a little distance from the Nile, 
at the starting-point of the two chief roads that lead 
through the desert to the shores of the Red Sea, to 
Qoceir, and to Ras-Banas respectively. A part of the 
trade between Egypt and Southern Arabia or Somali- 
land traversed those routes from the very earliest times. 
The sailors unloaded the wares they brought from 
Pouanît or the Divine Lands in one of the havens 
situated near Qoceir itself. The goods consisted for the 
most part of resins and gums or odorous barks, which 
the ancients mingled together for their sacrifices, incense, 
myrrh, cinnamon, as well as gold, ivory, ebony, rare 
woods, rare animals like the monkey or the giraffe. The 
produce was entrusted to caravans, which reached 
Coptos in four or five days, and thence made use of 
the Nile to penetrate the whole of the valley from 
Syene to Memphis. Coptos was a depot where native 
and exotic merchandise was accumulated and bartered; 
its prosperity increased or diminished with the fluctua- 
tions of the Red Sea trade, and attained its zenith 
when the power of Egypt was entirely in the hands of 
one energetic family, and could guarantee the safety of 
the desert routes against the Bedouins, or exercise a 
strict surveillance over the coast of the Erythraea. The 
ruins, tried as they have been by invasions, still preserve 
enough documents to teach us that the Vlth Dynasty, 
about 3600 b.c., the Xlth and Xllth, about 3200 b.c., 
the XVIIIth and XlXth, from 1700 b.c. to 1300 b.c., 
the Ptolemies and the Antonines effectively protected 
and enriched the town. Its best time was from the third 
century b.c. to the third century a.d., first under the 
Macedonians and then under the Romans, when a con- 
siderable portion of the maritime trade with India and 
1 Flinders Pétrie: Koptos, London, 1896. 




... _ .- \ 



7i 






-ni -\u -^nnn 




r 



COPTOS 99 

China passed through it before proceeding to Alex- 
andria. The turbulent character of its inhabitants and 
their revolts repeatedly drew on it the anger of its 
masters. Diocletian destroyed it, Kous, then Keneh, 
took its place. The town declined, was deserted, 
decayed, and became a heap of rubbish exploited by 
fellaheen and archaeologists. 

A little of everything can be gleaned on so ancient a 
site, occupied by so many different generations. Flin- 
ders Pétrie preferred to devote his attention to the great 
temple, and has extracted from it fragments of every 
epoch. The larger number belong to the Xlth and 
Xllth Dynasties, and come from halls rebuilt by one of 
the Antoufs, Antouf V, and by Amenemhaît I. They 
are of a marvellous delicacy, and will rank among the 
most remarkable works of Egyptian sculpture during the 
first Theban Empire. The relief is very low, scarcely 
perceivable above the general level of the wall, and yet 
the few delicate touches which heighten the contour of the 
figures are wonderfully precise and accurate, and most 
skilfully applied in the right places. Indeed, the model- 
ling of the head and body stand out as perfectly as if 
sculptured in high relief. The sculptures of the tomb 
give an idea of the elegance and the skilful technique of 
the art of the Xllth Dynasty, but the fragments of the 
great official buildings we had so far discovered were too 
much mutilated to enable us to discern the point of per- 
fection attained in the studios where work was done for 
the kings. The pieces now discovered by Flinders 
Pétrie, of which he publishes photographs, permit us 
to judge of that perfection with certainty, and partly to 
fill in one of the most serious lacunae in our manuals of 
Egyptian archaeology. The pictures of Deîr El-Baharî, 
Louxor, and Abydos are the only ones that can be com- 
pared with those of Coptos ; perhaps, indeed, the former 
lack something of the inspiration of the latter. The 



ioo NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

blocks in the name of Thoutmôsis III and later 
sovereigns that Flinders Pétrie describes after the others 
are far from possessing an equal interest for the history 
of art. They authorize us to declare that Coptos always 
possessed notable schools, and that the sculptor's art 
never descended as low there as in many Egyptian 
towns; they are particularly valuable for their historical 
information despite the injury they have received at the 
hands of time. 

The most curious is an actual decree of excommunica- 
tion promulgated in the year III of King Antouf V 
by the chapter of the god Mînou, the patron of the 
town. The document does not tell us what Teti, son 
of Mînhotpou, had done to deserve his condemnation, 
and it is probable that we shall never know for certain. 
Some of the expressions lead me to judge that probably 
politics had much to do in the matter, and that Teti 
was implicated in some plot against the sovereign. 
Here is the composition, which does not lack origin- 
ality : "The year III, the 25th Pharnenôth, under his 
Majesty Antouf, who, like unto the Sun, gives life 
everlastingly. Decree of the king to Mînouhâît, 
governor of Coptos, to Kaîninou, the royal prince who 
is in command at Coptos, to the vassal Monkhoumînou, 
to the hierogrammatist Nofirhotpou, to all the soldiers 
of Coptos, and to the whole community of the temple. 
To all of you this decree is sent that you may know 
the following : My Majesty has sent the hierogram- 
matist, vassal of Amon, Siamonou, and the head of 
the ushers, Ousiramonou, to make an inquiry at the 
temple of Mînou, regarding the deputation that the com- 
munity of the temple of my father, Mînou, sent to my 
Majesty to say : ' A wicked plot has been made in this 
temple, and an enemy introduced into it (may his name 
pass away !), Teti, son of Mînhotpou !' Let him be cast 
out of the temple of my father Mînou; let him be dis- 
missed from his employment in the temple, he and his, 



COPTOS ioi 

from son to son, from posterity to posterity, and let them 
be wanderers on the face of the earth ; let his rations of 
bread be cut off, let his portion of the sacred viands be 
erased from the registers so that his name be not com- 
memorated, as is done to all who like him have blas- 
phemed or shown hostility to his god ; let all that relates 
to him on the writings of the temple and in the registers 
of the royal treasury be effaced; if any actual king, or 
any one performing the functions of a king, pardon him, 
let that king no longer wear the white crown, let him no 
longer keep the red crown of Egypt, let him sit no 
longer on the throne of Horus, who reigns over the living, 
let the two goddesses of the south and the north no more 
bestow on him their love; no matter what general or 
what governor presents himself before the king, and asks 
pardon for this wicked man, let his goods and his lands 
be forfeit to the Treasury of my father, Mînou of Coptos; 
and let none of his clients or dependents, none of the 
clients or dependents of his father or mother be provided 
for from his office, but let that office be given to the 
vassal, the administrator of the palace, Mînouhâît, and 
let be given him also the bread of the other, and his 
portion of the sacred viands, and let them be written in 
his name in the registers of the temple of Mînou of 
Coptos, from son to son, from posterity to posterity !" 
A document later by 2000 years condemned those who 
were excommunicated to be burnt alive at Napata in 
Ethiopia. But Teti's life was spared. Was the mercy 
intentional or did he escape his persecutors? 

Kings little known until now appear here and there, a 
Râhotpou who seems to have reigned about the eighteenth 
century b.c. without much distinction, and we must come 
down almost to the town's last days to find inscriptions 
equal in interest to the decree of excommunication. The 
Greeks and then the Romans kept a fairly strong gar- 
rison there, which guarded the Nile and the desert, and 
also a custom-house, where everything that came from 



102 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

the Red Sea or went to it paid dues for entrance and 
departure. Soldiers and excisemen have left traces in 
the inscriptions dug out by Flinders Pétrie. Antistius 
Asiaticus, Prefect of the coast at Berenicia on the Red 
Sea, under Domitian, drew up a tariff about 90 a.d. We 
learn what the grantees of the transport service between 
Coptos and Berenicia had to disburse : to bring a helms- 
man into Egypt, 8 drachmas, a bowman, 10 drachmas, 
a sailor, 5 drachmas, a slave for prostitution, 108 drach- 
mas, an ass, 2 obols, and so on ; to convey a mummy 
from Coptos to the sea and vice versa, 1 drachma and 4 
obols. Egyptians who died away from their native 
village exacted that their bodies should be buried in 
their native places ; the corpse was consigned to a boat- 
man or the head of a caravan, who delivered it according 
to freight at the desired place, and the number of these 
funerary packages was sufficiently large for toll to be 
levied on them. Auxiliary troops levied in Asia have 
left dedications to their divinities ; thus Marcus Aurelius 
Beliakôb, of the Palmyrian archers to the most high 
god, Jerablous of Hierapolis. A sailor or a merchant 
who had escaped the dangers of the Red Sea dedicated a 
votive offering to the most high Isis for the successful 
voyage of the good ship Sarapis. Some of these monu- 
ments, unimportant in themselves, derive interest from 
the name of the sovereign under whom they were erected ; 
one of them constitutes one of the rare memorials we 
possess of Caius Fulvius Quietus, who was Emperor in 
the East with his father Macrian in 259, during the years 
which followed the defeat of Valerianus and his capture 
by the Persians. They are small events and insignifi- 
cant facts considered by themselves. But, pieced to- 
gether, they explain and complete each other, and end 
by forming, as in a mosaic, a picture of the life of a pro- 
vincial city in Egypt under the Pharaohs or under 
foreign rulers. 




PhotS] The Barberini Obelisk raised by Hadrian for Antinous. \_Ii. Moscioni 

age 102. 



XII 

THE TOMB OF ANTINOUS AT ROME 

As it is unwise to be discouraging, I will not declare 
the Barberini obelisk to be the ugliest of Egyptian 
obelisks ; I will content myself with calling it the poorest 
of the obelisks that have been erected at different times 
in the public places of Rome. It is badly cut, badly pro- 
portioned, heavy, and squat; each of the four sides is 
covered with two columns of hieroglyphics piled one on 
top of the other in such confusion that the order of the 
words can scarcely be distinguished. The sculptors 
who executed this masterpiece took a great amount of 
trouble, but they lacked the intelligence and skill of their 
colleagues who were then engaged in decorating the 
sanctuaries of Upper Egypt, Thebes and Philae. It 
has none of the qualities that give such a dignified 
aspect to the obelisks of the great period, such as purity 
of line, inflexible clearness of the edges, perfect polish 
of the material, broad and harmonious spacing of the in- 
scriptions, beauty of the characters ; it is indeed only an 
awkward and pretentious counterfeit. But its inscriptions 
have an interest for the archaeologist that they do not 
possess for the artist. We know from Champollion that 
they are devoted to the praise of Antinous, and that they 
celebrate Hadrian's strange favourite as if he was a 
god. Erman has just translated them in an almost defini- 
tive manner, and there is all the more merit in the task 
since a more barbarous text has never presented itself to 
the attention of an Egyptologist. The language spoken 

103 



104 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

on the banks of the Nile in the time of Hadrian was to 
that of the Theban Pharaohs as Italian or French is to 
Latin. Scholars, priests and nobles nearly understood 
it by routine, just as the monks of the eleventh or 
twelfth century understood the language of Cicero ; when 
they wished to write it, they were compelled to use the 
fragments borrowed from their reading of Centos, in 
which lexicon and grammar were equally ill-treated. 
Erman was often vastly puzzled by the curious sen- 
tences, complicated by an entirely unprejudiced spell- 
ing. The surprising thing is not that there are a few 
blank spaces in his translation, 1 but that there are not 
more. He displays inexhaustible ingenuity in finding 
a meaning, and the version suggested for more than 
one of the sentences may appear doubtful to some of 
his readers,' to me they seem exactly to fit the original, 
and should be accepted in almost every case as corre- 
sponding to the thought of the Egyptian scribe to whom 
we owe this piece of eloquence. The basis of the ideas 
and formulas counts for much in the feeling of improb- 
ability aroused in us. The Egyptian protocol applied 
to Egyptians of pure race, or to the Egyptianized Ptole- 
mies, is exceedingly curious. The fantastic and almost 
comic effects produced when it is adapted to the hand- 
some Antinous and his Roman surroundings are 
scarcely imaginable. 

11 How splendid," exclaims the author in one of the 
inscriptions, "the fortune that has come to the Osirian 
Antinous ! His heart feels the greatest joy because he 
knows his new shape^ and since he has begun to live 
again he sees his father Horus !" Then he takes advan- 
tage of his entrance into the Egyptian heaven to implore 
Râ's protection for Hadrian and his wife, the Sabine 

1 A. Erman : Der Obelisk des Antinous; Huelsen : Der Grab des 
Antinous, taken from the Memoirs of the German Archaeological 
Institute, Vol. xi, pp. 1 13-130. 1896. 



TOMB OF ANTINOUS AT ROME 105 

Empress. That duty accomplished, he takes complete 
possession of all his divine privileges, and it is only just, 
for he had been mummified with all conventional rites. 
He is now "a brave man, without weakness; ... he 
breathes the air of life, his glory is in the heart of all 
men, and Thot, the Lord of Hermopolis, the master of 
the Holy Books, will rejuvenate his soul as the moon 
and the sun are rejuvenated in their seasons, day and 
night, at every hour, at every minute ! Love of him is 
in the hearts of all his servants, fear of him is in all 
their limbs, all men praise and worship him. The 
place of his feet is in the Hall of Truth," where Osiris 
judges the dead ; the souls acclaim him, he goes where 
he likes, all the gates of Hades open before him. And 
while the immortals eagerly welcome him in heaven, 
mortals overwhelm him with honour on earth. " Jousts 
for the brave men who are in this land are instituted 
in the town, the name of which is derived from his, 
for the boatmen, and for the wrestlers of the whole 
earth, even for all the people who know the dwelling 
of Thot; crowns are placed on their heads by way 
of prizes, as well as rewards of all sorts of good things. 
Offerings are made on his altars, the liturgies of the 
gods are placed before him every day . . . people come 
to him from every town, because he listens to the 
prayers of those who invoke him. He heals the sick," 
by bestowing on them those prophetic dreams, in 
which the gods reveal to their petitioners the remedies 
best suited to cure them. As such power could not 
belong to a child of the human race, the panegyrist 
does not doubt that his hero is of divine extraction, 
his mother received him of a god descended incognito 
on to the earth. It was a common custom with the 
Egyptian gods when they wished to enthrone a family 
of new Pharaohs. 1 They used it in the case of Anti- 
1 Cf. Chapter VIII. 



io6 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

nous, not to found a dynasty, a thing Rome would not 
have tolerated, but to bestow on the world another god, 
a thing to which Rome was not usually averse. 

That is what the inscriptions on three sides of the 
obelisk have to tell us. Many readers will consider it 
very little; they would prefer a narrative, even though 
it were official, of the death of Antinous, and to know 
which of the current versions of the matter pleased the 
Emperor. Did Antinous sacrifice himself to save 
Hadrian from the dangers of which he was foretold, or 
was he accidentally drowned? The Egyptian author is 
silent on the subject, and probably it did not greatly 
interest him ; he had been commissioned to write a 
panegyric according to the strictest rules of Egyptian 
rhetoric, and he honestly accomplished the task, with as 
many fine phrases and as few facts or ideas as possible. 
But the legend on the fourth side reveals to us a circum- 
stance that was unknown to ancient historians, and to 
which modern historians have not paid sufficient atten- 
tion. Antinous perished near Hermopolis, and his 
deification, the games celebrated in his honour, the insti- 
tution of his worship, all the events so far known, took 
place near Hermopolis, in the town of Antinoë. This 
time, however, the narrative takes us to Rome. " The 
Antinous who is here, and who reposes in this locality, 
who is in the field situated near the powerful lady, Rome, 
is recognized as a god in the divine localities of Egypt. 
A temple has been built for him, he is worshipped there 
as a god by the prophets and by the priests of the South 
and of the North, as well as by the people of Egypt; a 
town is named after him, and the soldiers, as well as 
all the Greeks who are in the Egyptian localities, come 
to this town, all, as many as they are, and fields and 
lands are given them to make their lives most happy. 
There is in that place a temple of the god called Osiris- 
Antinous, built of fine white limestone, surrounded by 



TOMB OF ANTINOUS AT ROME 107 

sphinxes, statues, many columns as the kings, our 
ancestors, built them, and as the Greeks did after them ; 
all the gods and all the goddesses give breath to 
Antinous that he may acquire a new youth." 

Erman understands, as did Birch before him, 1 that 
Antinous was buried at Rome, in the field near the town, 
and I do not see that any other translation could be 
made. It must be conceded that Antinous, mummified 
at Hermopolis directly after his death, was not buried in 
his city of Antinoë. Hadrian took him with him, or 
sent him direct to Rome, and built him a tomb outside 
the Pomcerium, as the Egyptian inscription expressly 
states. Birch thinks that the phrase, the field situated 
near the powerful lady, Rome, means the Campus 
Martius; according to Parker, the obelisk placed in 
front of the tomb would have been removed to the 
amphitheatre of Varius Marcellus, perhaps by Helio- 
gabalus, about 220. On the other hand, Huelsen, who 
adds to Erman's memoir very interesting notes on the 
discovery of the obelisk in the sixteenth century, and on 
its fate from the time it fell into the hands of the Bar- 
berini until it was set up in the Pincio Piazza by Pope 
Pius VII in 1822, thinks that the spot where it was dis- 
covered in the Vigna Saccocci, marks within a little the 
site on which Hadrian originally erected it. It is to be 
hoped that well-directed excavations may bring to light 
the monument that it accompanied, alone, or joined to 
a similar one, according to the Egyptian custom. If, 
indeed, the tomb referred to in the inscription was not 
a cenotaph consecrated to the worship of his favourite 
by the Emperor, there might be a chance of finding in 
it the coffin or the sarcophagus. The climate of Rome, 
unlike that of Egypt, does not lend itself to the preserva- 
tion of bodies, but chance sometimes does strange 
things, and the methods of mummification, degenerate 
1 Cf. Parker : Obelisks of Rome. 



io8 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

as they were in Roman times, would still offer a strong 
resistance to decomposition. The corpses were impreg- 
nated with a boiling bitumen, which transformed them 
into a blackish mass, hideous to see, foetid to smell, easy 
to break or to burn, but less accessible to damp than the 
better prepared mummies of the great Pharaonic ages. 
If the funerary chamber escaped the depredations of 
thieves and barbarians, there is some chance left of 
extracting from it still intact the block of charcoal, of 
vaguely human form, that was once the handsome 
Antinous. 



XIII 

A PHILOSOPHICAL DIALOGUE BETWEEN AN EGYPTIAN 
AND HIS SOUL 

An Egyptian was talking with one of his souls. They 
had several in those times; the baî, a bird which after 
the death flew to the heavenly sphere, but returned at 
will; the double, sl coloured, mobile, live image which 
dwelt in the tomb as in its lawful domicile, and escaped 
from it during the day, if it liked, in order to see 
again the regions that testified to its existence; the 
dark shade, the khaibît; the luminous one, the khou, 
which hid itself in the darkest corners of the vault, and 
only left them at rare intervals in order to punish the 
living for their neglect of it. The beginning of the 
manuscript in which this conversation is preserved is 
lost, and so we do not know how it came about. At 
the point where we take it up, the interview had already 
lasted some time, and the talk is going its way. Death 
is undoubtedly the subject, but the thesis defended by 
each of the interlocutors is not very clear. I thought 
that the man, terrified by the uncertainties of the future 
life, was explaining his anguish to the soul; the soul 
attempted to reassure him, and drew an almost attractive 
picture of the passage between the present and the future 
life. Erman, who has just translated the dialogue, 1 
thinks, on the contrary, that the man was summoning 

1 A. Erman : Gesprach eines Lebensmiiden mit seiner Seele, aus dem 
Papyrus 3024 der Koeniglichen Museen, extracted from the Memoirs 
of the Berlin Academy of Sciences. 1896. 

109 



no NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

death, and that the soul was trying to dissuade him 
from suicide. The text lends itself to both interpreta- 
tions, and only the discovery of the first part would 
authorize us to declare which is true. One point, how- 
ever, is certain in either view, the author's gloomy 
conception of humanity, a conception he largely 
develops in the last couplets of his work. For one who 
has seen the perversity of the age, and the lamentable 
passage of the world, Hades has no terrors, and in his 
eyes death is only a return from exile, or the cure of a 
painful malady. 

The soul having evidently concluded a very eloquent 
tirade, of which only two or three words remain, the 
man " opens his mouth and replies to the soul ' Concern- 
ing what he had said.' " He complains that it had not 
spoken wisely enough to him in the trials he had gone 
through, but " had fled away during the days of mis- 
fortune. — And then, my soul attacks me because I did 
not listen when it led me to death, because I did not 
go towards it when it threw me into the flames to con- 
sume me !" And yet it ought " to have been close to 
me in the days of misfortune, to have kept by my side 
as one who weeps for me, as one who leaves the crowd 
and walks near me. O my soul, cease to reproach me 
that I mourn for life, cease to thrust me towards death 
because I do not go to it with entire pleasure, cease, 
also, to draw a pleasant picture of Hades ! Is it not 
a misfortune that life can only be lived once? Is 
not Hades filled with gods who ask of the manes a 
strict account of their sins?" Here the soul, impatient 
of such weakness, interrupts brusquely : " Art thou not 
a poor devil ? And yet thou cursest the other world, 
and groanest over thy fate as if thou wert a rich 
man!" But the man is not disconcerted by this 
attack: " It's no use your getting angry," he replies, 
" I shall not go," and he insists more emphatically than 



A PHILOSOPHICAL DIALOGUE in 

before on the terror death inspires in him, and the 
vicissitudes of burial. The soul draws a fresh argu- 
ment from the words it has just heard : " If thou inces- 
santly thinkest on the tomb, it is a trouble of the heart, 
a cause for weeping which crushes the individual and 
tears him from his home; for once cast on the hill," 
where the tombs are, " thou wilt come out no more to see 
the Sun"; all the dead are vowed fatally to oblivion, 
and " those for whom granite statues have been carved, 
for whom the double dwelling has been cut in form of 
a pyramid, a work of excellence and perfection, the 
divine statues modelled for them, and the tables of 
votive offerings attached to them, all these are in the 
end left as lonely as if they had been humble persons 
who had died of hunger by the roadside, or a small 
farmer brought to ruin by inundation or drought, poor 
devils who had none to talk to but the fish by the water's 
side !" There, indeed, was the height of distress for the 
Egyptian, who was naturally talkative, and an old 
shepherd's song said of the brickmaker who works with 
his feet in the mud after the water subsides: "The 
brickmaker is in the water among the fishes — he talks 
to the cat-fish, he greets the oxyrhynchos, Hades, your 
brickmaker is a brickmaker of Hades !" he dies because 
he has no one to talk to. But the soul is careful not 
to leave its man with so fatal a picture. It counsels 
him to put away sad thoughts and to give himself up to 
present joy. " Hearken to me, for it is good for men 
to hearken — follow the happy day, put aside lamenta- 
tation." And it supports the advice by examples drawn 
from daily life. " When the vassal has laboured at his 
field, and loaded his harvest on a boat, he entrusts 
himself to the water, and his time of rejoicing draws 
nigh," the pleasure of storing it in the granary. But 
suddenly he sees a storm gathering; he keeps watch 
in his boat from sunset to sunrise, while his wife and 



ii2 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

children, " who came to meet him, perish in the canal, 
terrified in the darkness, among the crocodiles." Then 
he crouches down, and raises his voice, saying: " I 
do not weep for this dear soul who will not come out 
from Hades to return to the earth; I weep for the 
children cut off in the spring-time of their life, who, 
because they saw the face of the crocodile, are no longer 
living." Those who should complain are not those who 
have accomplished their term of life, but those from 
whom life has been prematurely snatched. 

That speech convinces the man. He contradicts him- 
self, and admits that he has no great happiness to expect 
in this world; the tomb is a sure shelter, where he will 
enjoy absolute repose. What follows is evidently the 
principal part of the work, that over which the poet 
took the most care, and that which his readers will 
most admire. The piece is divided into three couplets, 
constructed on the same model; strophes of three lines, 
the first of which is repeated each time; the two others 
offer a new image, by means of which the theme 
put forward in each couplet is developed. The man 
declares the misery and contempt into which he fell 
after the events recorded doubtless at the beginning of 
the history, but of which so far we are ignorant. " See, 
my name is more abused than the odour of ravens on 
summer days when the sun blazes I — See, my name is 
more abused than the peach when the sun blazes. — See, 
my name is more abused than the odour of birds, more 
than the high meadows in which flocks of geese feed." 
And in similar fashion he passes in review a series of 
animals or of occupations which spread a foetid odour, 
before risking similes drawn from a higher order of 
ideas. " See, my name is more abused than the wife 
who has been slandered to her husband ! — See, my 
name is more abused than the brave child about whom 
lies are told to his parents ! — See, my name is more 



A PHILOSOPHICAL DIALOGUE 113 

abused than a town which is continually plotting rebel- 
lion, but which is never found out!" He struggles in" 
vain against this evil reputation. How is he to justify 
himself, since all the men of the age are egoists and 
cowards? "To whom shall I speak to-day? The 
brothers are bad, and the friends of to-day love no one. 
— To whom shall I speak to-day? Hearts are cruel, 
and each man takes his neighbour's goods. — To whom 
shall I speak to-day? The weak perish and victory is 
to the strong. — To whom shall I speak to-day ? No 
one remembers yesterday, and no one dares act at the 
crucial moment. — To whom shall I speak to-day ? 
There are no more just men, and the earth is a heap 
of evil-doers!" The litany is too long to be quoted 
in full; in short: "the wicked strike the world unceas- 
ingly !" Death alone offers a refuge to him who desires 
to escape the evils of this world, and becomes indeed 
almost pleasant by contrast. " Death seems to me to- 
day like the remedy for a disease, like going out into the 
open air after a fever ! — Death seems to me to-day like 
an odour of incense, like repose under a sail on a windy 
day ! — Death seems to me to-day like the odour of the 
lotus, like repose on the shores of a land of plenty ! — 
Death seems to me to-day like the path of a torrent, like 
the return home of a soldier-sailor ! — Death seems to me 
to-day like the clear sky after a storm, like a man who 
goes hunting in an unknown land ! — Death seems to 
me to-day like the desire of a man to see his home 
after many years spent in captivity ! — He who is 
4 among the dead,' is a living god who spurns the sin 
of him who commits it ! — Whoever is there, he sits 
in the Boat of the Sun, and presides at the distribu- 
tion of the offerings to the temples. Whoever is there 
is as a learned man to whom nothing he implores of 
Râ is refused." The soul, delighted with his success, 
adds a few well-chosen words of congratulation to this 
8 



ii 4 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

profession of faith, and promises not to desert the man 
in his hour of trial : " When you arrive in Hades and 
your body still belongs to the earth, I will keep close 
to you while you rest, and we will dwell together." 

Such is this strange manuscript, one of the most 
extraordinary among those left us by ancient Egypt. 
The language is concise and vigorous, the text muti- 
lated, sometimes incorrect, and I am not sure that in all 
places we have extracted the correct shades of meaning. 
I can speak of the difficulties it presents with personal 
knowledge, for I have made three attempts to explain its 
meaning in twenty years at the École des Hautes-Etudes, 
and I studied it most carefully without succeeding in 
satisfying myself. Erman has performed a veritable 
feat in translating it, and if everything in his interpreta- 
tion is not certain, the fault should not be attributed 
to him but to the perversity of the chance that has trans- 
mitted the manuscript in the most unfavourable circum- 
stances for its right understanding. For that reason Ï 
can scarcely be expected to hazard an opinion as to its 
literary value. It is generally conceded that the author, 
conscious of the banality of his subject, took great pains 
to give it variety and to render the expression of it 
artistic; but, unfortunately, it is the literary art that we 
can least appreciate. We may sometimes divine the 
sounds of the rhymes, the assonances, the plays upon 
words depending on the multiple meanings of the 
roots, the harmony or contrasts of the rhythms, but 
our comprehension of such points does not go very far. 
The themes and the topics come out almost quite clearly, 
but they belong to a religion, to customs, to a political 
constitution, to methods of administration that we im- 
perfectly know, and to be understood require a com- 
mentary so learned that it almost always kills the little 
poetry that has managed to survive. The translation 
of the dialogue bears the same relation to the original 



A PHILOSOPHICAL DIALOGUE 115 

that the disjointed skeleton of a fossil animal bears to 
the living prototypes of its day. It provides the curious 
with a few rusty fragments of the framework of the com- 
position ; but the undulation of the contours, the con- 
trasts and harmonies of the colours, the spirit which 
animated it, and the movement which vivified it are all 
wanting. 



XIV 

AN EGYPTIAN BOOK OF MAGIC OF THE FIRST CENTURY A.D. 

From the earliest times magic was the great Egyptian 
science. Long before the time of the Pyramids, sor- 
cerers fabricated charms by which they controlled the 
gods, and forced them to do whatever was demanded 
of them ; they could call up the dead, enchant the living, 
model and put life into wax dolls made in the form of 
men or animals, or painlessly cut off a man's head and 
put it back on his shoulders. Conspirators desiring to 
get rid of a king bewitched him, and entered into collu- 
sion with the women of the harem to procure certain 
accessories required for their operations. Speculators in 
quest of hidden wealth exorcised the serpents who guarded 
the treasure in the Necropolis of Memphis. Magic 
entered into all the acts of life, into all its passions, love, 
hate, ambition, revenge, into the care of the sick. Its 
adepts continually perfected it with new practices in- 
vented by themselves, or derived from foreign parts; 
they took books of magic and amulets from Chaldaea, 
Syria, Ethiopia, Judaea, Greece, so that in the first 
century a.d. their laboratory and their library com- 
prised, as it were, the quintessence of all the systems 
of magic in use from one end of the Roman Empire to 
the other. 

One of their rituals, compiled about the time of the 
Antonines, has been preserved; part of it is in the 
museum of Leyden, and part in the British Museum. 
It is written in the latest of the running hands of Egypt, 

116 



AN EGYPTIAN BOOK OF MAGIC 117 

the demotic, the small appearance and confusing turns 
of which still puzzle most students. Certain fragments 
of it have been repeatedly studied, and Groff has just 
published a complete analysis, so that those who are 
curious on the subject can now form an idea of the 
sorcerer's equipment at that time. 1 He was only a pro- 
vincial relegated to one of the secondary towns of middle 
Egypt, Oxyrynchus, and doubtless possessed only this 
one tool. But it contained all he needed for his ordinary 
customers. Did they wish to interview a divinity? 
Half-a-dozen recipes were forthcoming, more or less 
efficacious, or more or less dangerous, according to the 
purpose of the consultation and the fee offered. Others 
compelled a dead person to come out of the tomb, and 
reply to questions asked him. To force a man to love 
a woman, or a woman to love a man, there was a wide 
choice, and there were equally numerous ways of send- 
ing dreams to foes or friends, to compel them to take 
the desired step. Those were the usual things, at least 
in the district of Oxyrynchus. The practitioner whose 
book of magic we are reading had only one way of stop- 
ping or averting a storm ; but he practised medicine, 
and cured the bite of a dog or a serpent by words, 
accompanied with curious ceremonies. He had a list 
of diseases at the service of those who wished to get rid 
of a relation whose property he expected to inherit, or 
of a tiresome neighbour; he distilled philtres, prepared 
and consecrated talismans, at need he told fortunes. All 
this did not go on without trouble, or without arousing 
the anger of the populace against him. The law pursued 
him, the priest looked askance at him, the anger of his 
victims or of his dupes sometimes overtook him, and 
the spirits he dominated did not save him from public 

1 "Etudes sur la sorcellerie ou le rôle que la Bible a joué chez 
les sorciers" (extract from the Mémoires de Fhistitut Egyptien). 
1897. 



u8 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

condemnation or private vengeance; nevertheless, the 
profits of the profession outweighed the disadvantages, 
and those who adopted it made a fortune. 

The technique of the incantations naturally varied 
with circumstances. One of the most frequent, that in 
which one or more divinities became visible, required 
elaborate preparations, and the assistance of a special 
helper, a child, a little boy of ten or twelve years old. 
Even to-day the magician who calls up scenes in the 
mirror of magic ink cannot look at them himself, for 
his impurity blinds him to the manifestation of trie 
spirits; a child pure in soul and body is alone 
capable of understanding the words they say, or of in- 
terpreting their acts. The sorcerer procured a lamp 
that had never been used; he placed a new wick in it, 
and pure oil, then he retired into an isolated chamber, 
completely dark, and consecrated, and lighted the lamp. 
As soon as it burned steadily, he placed the child in 
front of it, bidding him fix his eyes on the flame, and 
declaimed the words that had the power to call forth 
the gods. A drug previously dissolved in the oil, a 
powder thrown on the wick during the manipulations, 
gave out a penetrating perfume. The child soon saw a 
figure appear either by the side of the flame, or in the 
flame itself. He informed the operator, who began a 
new prayer, and requested the help of the being who 
was manifesting himself for the client on whose behalf 
he was working. It sometimes happened that the god 
refused to take any part in the matter, or that he was 
angered by the importunate person who disturbed his 
peace, and then the divinity would ill-treat, or even kill 
him. A sorcerer of Louxor, having discovered a col- 
league in me, was not averse to discussing his lore with 
me, but refused to give me a proof; for nearly a year, 
each time he had attempted to carry out some manifesta- 
tion, the red sultan who presides over the evil genii had 



AN EGYPTIAN BOOK OF MAGIC 119 

tried to strangle him. The af rites of Mussulman Egypt 
have not, as we see, lost the tradition of the gods of 
Pharaonic Egypt. 

The pieces in the demotic collection do not greatly 
differ from those to be found in the Agrippa of French 
rural sorcerers. Side by side with adjurations, they 
offer advice; threats are expressed in intelligible lan- 
guage, there are lists of odd words without appreciable 
meaning for the unlearned, and almost always for the 
practitioner who recites them. Among the confusion of 
terms we may distinguish names, and sometimes frag- 
ments of phrases borrowed from foreign languages, the 
Ethiopian, Greek or Hebrew. The gods and genii, 
by what law we do not know, became the slaves of those 
who called them by their real name, and at first, in 
magic as in religion, the name under which the com- 
munity worshipped them had been employed. It is 
probable that this fashion of summoning them to appear 
was not very efficacious, and it was remembered that the 
terms Amon, Phtah, Râ were purely human names used 
by the community, and which, consequently, they were 
not compelled to obey. They had special names to dis- 
tinguish themselves that they concealed in the bottom of 
their hearts, of which they made a mystery not only to 
mortals, but to the other divinities. The chief efforts 
of the magician, therefore, were directed to surprise 
their secret, and to tear from them the word that would 
put them at their mercy; the word, whether because 
it belonged to no human tongue, or because it came 
from a neighbouring people, remained incomprehensible 
to his clients, and therein lay its chief merit. It 
was not to be expected that one of the beings on high 
would leave his heavenly dwelling to undertake some 
amorous commission for a young girl when he was simply 
addressed as Anubis or Thot; but how could he help 
descending to earth and performing what he was asked 



i20 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

to do when he was proclaimed Khabakhel, Partomokh, 
or Knouriplnariza? It is exceedingly curious suddenly 
to come across the name Baal, or Adonaï, in the midst 
of this jargon. The Jews played so great a part in 
Egypt from the time of Alexander, that we ought not 
to be surprised if their sorcerers lent Egyptian magicians 
some of the expressions they used in their opera- 
tions. They gave them Jaô, Sabaoth, Eloaï, Mikhael, 
Joel, all their angels, and all their evil spirits. The 
ingenious necromancer even laid budding Christianity 
under contribution : Jesus seems to have been invoked 
by one of them, and John not far off. It goes without 
saying that the divinities of the Greeks figure by the 
side of those of the Asiatics or Africans. Some incan- 
tations comprise, as it were, a sample of each religion 
honoured in the Oriental provinces of the Roman 
Empire. 

We should scarcely suspect what a large part magic 
played in ordinary life if the excavations did not con- 
stantly prove it. Tablets of devotion are found nearly 
everywhere, at Cyprus, at Carthage, in Gaul, formerly 
prepared by magicians for clients who trusted their 
efficacy. They are thin sheets of lead, rolled or folded 
over, with writing or mysterious figures scratched on 
them. Sometimes they were fastened to the wall of a 
house or a tomb, sometimes they were slipped into the 
tomb itself by the opening through which libations 
were poured and prayers uttered. The manes and 
demons who dwelt there were excellent tools in the hands 
of the sorcerers, especially the souls of suicides, of 
criminals, of murdered persons, of all who died a violent 
death before their time, and who had to live near their 
bodies until the period predestined for their earthly life 
was accomplished. The commissions entrusted to them 
were manifold. They were told the names of the horses 
down to run in the circus, and were ordered to make 



AN EGYPTIAN BOOK OF MAGIC 121 

them ill, or restive, to drive them mad, or "to paralyze 
them, in short, to prevent them from winning the race. 
Or Domitius would require them to act for him with his 
mistress, Candida, and to kindle such hot love in her 
that her heart should burn, and never be extinguished. 
The incantations somewhat differed in form from those 
in the book of the sorcerer of Oxyrynchus; they are 
not there translated into Greek or Latin, but they are 
constructed on the same model, they let loose the same 
evil powers, they abound in similar mystical names and 
strange expressions; it is Egyptian or Hebrew magic 
acclimatized in the West. The compilation examined 
by Groff was only one of the least of the books of magic 
in use in the Roman world. They were counted by 
the hundred, and the abuses due to them ended by 
alarming the Emperors, and the books were ordered 
to be destroyed. The edicts, even supported by the exe- 
cution of notorious magicians, and of those who had 
recourse to their science, had no lasting influence, for, 
had the magistrates carried them out effectually, the 
population of several provinces would have been 
decimated. 



XV 

ARCHAIC EGYPT 

Until lately the Egypt of Cheops and of Chephrên 
marked the limit in the past to which our eyes could 
reach. We saw it clearly and distinctly in full posses- 
sion of its art and its political and social laws, but 
farther back the monuments suddenly ceased, and 
nothing more could be distinguished. It seemed that 
the mass of the Pyramids interposed between it and 
the Egypt that had preceded it. Now it is revealed in 
its turn at Abydos as at Negadeh, and its most ancient 
kings have arisen from their tombs. 

Flinders Pétrie discovered tombs of a peculiar aspect 
between Negadeh and Ballas ; many of them seemed to 
belong to a race of Libyan invaders. In the beginning 
of 1897 De Morgan, following Petrie's footsteps, opened 
a massive mastaba of unbaked bricks, decorated on the 
outside with the long prismatic grooves so frequent on 
monuments of the old empire. 1 The twenty-one 
chambers of which it is composed contain with the 
remains of the skeleton a funerary equipment of a rich- 
ness commensurate with the rank of the person. The 
arms and tools are mostly of flint, the table service of 
different kinds of stone or of black and red pottery, the 
furniture of wood overlaid with ivory, the ornaments of 
paste, tortoise-shell, mother-of-pearl, cornelian, crystal, 
gold; fragments of food were mingled with rags of 

1 Recherches sur les origines de P Egypte, ethnographie préhistorique et 
tombeau royal de Négadèh, by J. de Morgan, with the collaboration of 
Messrs. Wiedemann and Jéquier, and of Dr. Fouquet. Paris, 1897. 



The so-called Palette of Narmer, a Monument of Archaic Egypt. 



ARCHAIC EGYPT 123 

calcined stuffs. A certain number of these objects are of 
fine workmanship, and their artistic form nearly re- 
sembles that of the monuments of later times. An ivory 
statuette of a dog or a lion is sufficiently commonplace, 
but the feet of an arm-chair or of a bed, also in ivory, 
yield in nothing to the best work of the Memphian 
sculptors, and figures of fish have an accurate and pleas- 
ing physiognomy. Indeed, there is nothing in it that 
points to the beginnings of an art. We feel that the 
men to whom we owe it had a long tradition behind 
them. When the tomb was built Egypt had emerged 
from her infancy, and civilization had developed the 
chief characteristics that show themselves under the 
modern Pharaohs; it was entirely of the Nile, and 
possesses no element necessarily to be attributed to out- 
side influence. If the people came from Asia, and there 
is nothing to prove it, they preserved no trace of their 
origin ; the valley of the Nile assimilated them, a con- 
summation always reached with all its invaders. 

The clay caps formerly used to close jars of wine, beer 
or water, offered to the dead man to quench his thirst, 
were sealed with one of his names. The characters are 
easily deciphered, and as soon as a drawing had been 
made of it in Europe the title of enthronization, Horou 
Ahouî, Horus warrior, Horus male, announced by the 
king when the crown was placed on his head, could be 
read. 1 Inscriptions were not rare on other objects, but 
they consisted of a few signs, figures indicating the 
quantity of each substance presented to the master, and 
especially a group of three ostriches, and the word baton 
(the souls) which attributes the ownership of the vases or 
coffers on which they are engraved to the souls of the 
king. A sacrificial scene engraved on an ivory plaque 
had the chapel of the tomb for its stage; two crouching 

1 It seems that this is the name of enthronization of the second king 
of the 1st Dynasty, Atôti, son of Menés. 1907. 



i2 4 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

animals can still be distinguished, perhaps the two oxen 
who dragged the sledge, the sledge itself in the shape of 
the sacred boat dedicated to Sokaris, the God of Hades, 
then the royal prenomen, warlike Horus, and perhaps 
under a light kiosk, perhaps under one of the small 
obelisks common enough in the old Memphian tombs, 
his real name, preceded by one of the most frequent titles 
of the protocol, ruler of the South and of the North. 
It comprises only one hieroglyph, the draught-board 
which stands for Manou, and it escaped the discoverers 
of the tomb. It is, however, the Egyptian spelling of 
him whom the Greeks transcribed Menés, and if we like 
we may recognize the first king of the 1st Dynasty, 
the oldest of the mortals who reigned after the gods, in 
the person buried at Negadeh. Are we justified in 
doing this, and is this Manou any Menés, or the tradi- 
tional Menés ? The Egyptian scribes, when they drew 
up the list of sovereigns who ruled the whole of Egypt, 
must have had an embarrassing task. They read on the 
oldest monuments, tombs, temples, inscriptions, isolated 
bas-reliefs, names of kings whose filiation and chrono- 
logical order did not always appear clear. They omitted 
several that accident has revealed to us, and they classi- 
fied the others according to rules that we have not dis- 
covered, so as to make Dynasties of them; their length 
and the order of the Pharaohs in each of them followed 
no fixed rule, and varied according to the epochs. In 
the two first dynasties they placed princes considered to 
be natives of Thinis, a certain Menés at their head. 
Thinis, which occupied almost exactly the site of the 
modern Girgeh, is somewhat distant from Negadeh, and 
it is to be doubted if the scribes would have admitted a, 
king not buried at Thinis, as the founder of a Thinite 
dynasty. The wisest course, then, before pronouncing 
decisively on the question of the identity of our Manou 
or Menés, is to await the discovery of new documents. 



ARCHAIC EGYPT 125 

For the moment it is sufficient to have drawn attention 
to a similarity in the names, to the great antiquity of 
Manou, to the possibility of finding in him the prototype 
of the fabulous Menés i 1 time will decide the rest. 

Perhaps there are contemporaries of this prince in the 
tombs excavated near Abydos by Amélineau. Several of 
the inscriptions noticed there seem to have the same 
archaic style, but most of the monuments have a much 
more modern appearance, and belong to a far less 
remote epoch. 2 A small ivory plaque that has come into 
the hands of an English amateur shows us a Pharaoh, 
he who is called Horus of striking stature, Horou-douni, 
fighting an enemy fallen in front of him. It is also the 
subject of the most ancient Egyptian bas-relief so far 
known to us; King Snofrouî, who ends the Illrd 
Dynasty or begins the IVth, sculptured it at Sinaï in 
order to perpetuate the memory of his victories over the 
Bedouins. The style and composition of the ivory pic- 
ture so closely resemble those of the rock picture that 
Spiegelberg does not hesitate to place the Horou-douni 
about the Illrd Dynasty. That is what I thought, and 
inscriptions discovered last year confirm that opinion in 
a surprising fashion. They came from a very large tomb 
which belonged to a king named Horus-Sît, in whom 
the two divine forms, Horou-Sît Kha-sakhmoui were 
manifested. Several of the functionaries attached to this 
personage left the impression of their seal on certain of 
the objects of which gifts are made to the double; one 
of them belongs to a lady, Hâpounimâît who was the 
wife or relative of Khâ-sakhmouî. JNTow, an inscription at 

1 I have since learnt that he has just been recognized by Borchardt, 
one of the German Egyptologists recently attached to the Ghizeh 
Museum, and that encourages me to persevere in the possible identifi- 
cation, if not of the person, at least of the name. 

2 Amélineau, in showing the results of his discoveries to the 
Academy of Inscriptions, did not distinguish between the monuments : 
he presented them anyhow, those of the Coptic age confused with 
those of the early Dynasties. 



i26 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

Memphis, in which Snofrouî appears, mentions, though 
I do not wish to insist on it too emphatically, a queen 
of the same name. If, as certain indications authorize 
us to suppose, the queen of the tomb at Memphis is 
identical with that of the tomb at Thinis, it is possible 
that our Khâ-sakhmouî is one of the immediate prede- 
cessors of Snofrouî, perhaps his father or his grand- 
father. 1 In any case it establishes a link between the 
Pharaohs of the Memphian Empire and those of the 
Thinite Empire that our excavators tried to discover 
between the Cheops of the great pyramid of Gizeh and 
the indefinite Menés of Negadeh. 

For more than twenty years the study of the Mem- 
phian tombs has led me to teach that the Egypt of the 
Pyramids was the end, and even the decadence, of an 
earlier Egypt. The language was perishing of old age, the 
religion was changing, art was revealing itself the nearer 
perfection the farther back it went into the past, political 
organization and social life tended to grow slack. The 
discoveries of Negadeh and Abydos enable us to put our 
finger on the civilization I only guessed at. Ideas and 
customs of which later generations only preserved a 
vague memory prevail there. The dead, for instance, 
were not mummified ; they were mutilated, dismembered, 
and the bones afterwards placed in the sepulchral 
chamber. Sometimes the corpse was burnt with its 
funerary equipment, and the whole tomb was set on fire 
in the last act of the funeral ceremonies. 2 Human 
sacrifice was currently practised, and probably also a 
ritual of cannibalism was indulged in. Several prayers 

1 After ten years all this still remains in a state of hypothesis, and 
there are no certified documents to settle any of the proposed classifi- 
cations of these kings. 

2 The tomb of Negadeh had been burnt, and M. de Morgan at first 
believed that it had been intentionally set on fire, probably in the last 
act of the funeral ; since, it has been found that the fire was caused, 
perhaps accidentally, by the thieves who plundered the tomb. 



ARCHAIC EGYPT 127 

engraved in the interior of the pyramids of the Vth and 
Vlth Dynasties had pointed to this already, and they 
must have been composed in the time of those old kings, 
perhaps even before their time, in the centuries before 
any Pharaohs existed. In examining the gnawed bones 
and the dismembered skeletons, it can now be under- 
stood what the ferocious Osiris, whose existence I divined 
in those archaic formulas, was like ; in the beginning the 
pre-eminently good Being of the Egyptian religion had 
been animated by the cruel instincts of her people, and 
she only gradually became gentler as the people grew 
more civilized. And yet in spite of the barbarity of the 
manners, and the simplicity of the tools, it must be con- 
fessed that we are far from the very beginning. The 
writing exists, and its system is already complete. The 
hieroglyphics have their classical value, and we can 
decipher them without difficulty wherever it is not a case 
of hasty scratchings traced on a fragment of a vase by a 
hurried workman. As we felt that there is the Egypt of 
Menés always powerful, always civilized behind the Egypt 
of the Pyramids, so now we catch a glimpse of a still 
more primitive Egypt, but past its early youth and well 
equipped for existence, behind the Egypt of Menés. 
Somewhere its monuments repose beneath the sand; 
they will rise up as soon as we have money enough to 
call them forth. 



XVI 

EGYPTIAN BELIEF IN LUCKY AND UNLUCKY DAYS 

There are many persons, even at the present time, 
who hesitate to start on their travels on a Friday, and if 
they do so, they feel uncomfortable and anxious. Others, 
even, do not hesitate at all, and prefer not to start. 
It means a distinct loss of a day a week, and, as fear of 
accident does not stop with some people even there, 
considerable disarrangement of things in general is 
caused by such an attitude. But however great the 
time thus lost by some persons now, it is very small 
compared with what the Egyptians lost in the cause of 
superstition in the Pharaonic age, even those who in 
their country and their day would have been considered 
sceptics. 

A papyrus in the British Museum contains a calendar 

in which a learned contemporary of Ramses II had, 

according to the works of certain former seers, marked 

the good or evil virtue of the days of the year. 1 We 

only possess about two-thirds of it, a little less than 

eight months, but each day is conscientiously qualified. 

The hours between the rising and setting of the sun, 

the only ones that are of importance, are divided into 

three seasons of four, each of which is ruled by its 

particular influence. Most often their quality was the 

same, and the whole day was placed in the category 

either of propitious or fatal days. Sometimes, however, 

1 The Papyrus Saltier, No. IV, published in facsimile in the Select 
Papyri, Vol. i, translated, with notes by Chabas. " Le Calendrier des 
jours, fastes et néfastes," Œuvres diverses, Vol. v, pp. 126-235. 

128 



BELIEF IN LUCKY DAYS 129 

it happened that one of the periods had one value, while 
another assumed another value, and there were also 
mixed days on which fortune differed every minute. 
The scribe has carefully registered these oscillations, 
and has placed a warning note for the reader after each 
date, good y good, good or hostile, hostile, hostile, or 
good, good, hostile, or any combination to which the 
division into three groups lends itself. He indicates 
afterwards the things to be done or avoided, the animals 
whose encounter or sight should be shunned, and adds 
to this information a summary of the motives which 
justified his recommendations. It was in almost every 
case a legendary episode of the gods, and as our know- 
ledge of Egyptian mythology is very far from thorough 
we are often at a loss as to the events and personages 
alluded to. We merely perceive that a victory, or some 
pleasant experience of one of the immortals at that 
particular date and hour, had some undefined effect on 
mortals and gave them a chance of prosperity. On 
the other hand, the consequences of a disaster in heaven 
made themselves felt on earth for a long period of time ; 
thus men were benefited or injured by the pleasure or 
pain of the gods. 

The results of these old sacred stories were often 
strange, and showed themselves in unexpected ways. 
The 23rd of the month of Thot is marked as thrice 
lucky, and yet the restrictions heaped on that day equal 
in number those of unlucky days. Incense must not 
be burnt, nor oxen nor goats nor ducks be killed, nor 
geese be eaten, nor music be played or listened to, and 
the child who was born would not live. How, then, did 
this lucky day differ from unlucky days ? It was prob- 
ably so well known at Thebes that the author deemed it 
unnecessary to inform posterity, and we are left in 
ignorance until a new order of things shall inform us. 
The 25th of the same month was reckoned favour- 
9 



i 3 o NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

able in the first two seasons, but the last was unfavour- 
able; demons allied with Set had formerly committed 
some misdeed in the afternoon, and the terror they 
inspired explains why believers were enjoined not to 
leave their houses in the evening hours. The 6th of 
Paophi was the fête-day of Râ, the Sun, and the gods 
held a family rejoicing; it is probable that they drank 
deep on the occasion, for the child born on that day 
was destined to die of intoxication. It was, it seems, 
an enviable fate, but there was a still better one : the 
man or woman who first saw the light on the ioth of 
Khoîak would die with " a piece of bread in their hand, 
and their mouths full of beer," the eye delighted by the 
sight of a well-plenished table. I have said elsewhere 
how unfavourable prognostics might be temporarily 
warded off; amulets or magic formulas permitted the 
threatened individual to postpone the moment of their 
realization. Whoever had the misfortune to be born 
on the 23rd of Paophi would be devoured by a crocodile, 
but if he protected himself with the suggested incanta- 
tions he would succeed in lengthening his life into 
extreme old age; his crocodile would have to wait all 
that time unless some carelessness delivered him to his 
mercy sooner. 

Injunctions with regard to fire are not rare in our 
calendar. Fire was not tamed as completely as it is 
with us; as it could only be produced by means of a 
long and difficult operation, it was carefully nourished, 
and great trouble was taken not to let it go out. It 
was, in fact, a veritable living being, an almost divine 
animal, who was worshipped and treated with the respect 
due to the genii superior to humanity, but at certain 
times it grew angry, and was then to be distrusted. On 
the 5th of Athyr, if it went out, it might not be 
rekindled, if it burned, it might not be looked at; its 
brightness would fascinate those who let their eyes stray 



BELIEF IN LUCKY DAYS 131 

towards it, and would draw them into it and consume 
them. The 7th of Tôbi, there was an order to keep 
the flame brilliant, in order to ward off the evil spirits 
who attack the house. On the nth of the same month 
no one might approach the fire-place, for the god Râ 
had once burst into flame on that day in order to devour 
his enemies, and the effects of his metamorphosis were 
felt each anniversary. The person who ventured near 
fire was penetrated by a sort of subtle aura, and had 
feeble health for the rest of his life. I should add that 
on that point modern Egypt has inherited the super- 
stitions of ancient Egypt. There are days in the year 
on which the fellaheen of Thebes and the Said refuse 
to kindle a fire, others when they avoid approaching the 
flame, even of a candle or lamp, and the most timid 
do not smoke. I often tried to find out the reason of 
their fear, but Egyptian peasants are much like French 
peasants. They suspect the foreigner who questions 
them about such matters of wishing to ridicule them, 
and either they make no reply at all or only a very 
brief one. Some of them, all Mussulmans, told me that 
on those days fire kindled by men changed into hell 
fire, and killed with short shrift all living beings or 
inanimate things that felt its heat. It is exactly the 
same reason as that given in the time of the Pharaohs, 
but no one could or would tell me why the flame under- 
went this troublesome change on a particular day. 

It was thought that many beasts possessed mysterious 
means of self-defence, from which not only the hunter 
but any one who chanced to encounter them could 
scarcely escape. The lion, like the serpent, could 
fascinate with its look; a glance of the eye of certain 
species of antelopes immobilized and petrified, so to 
speak; the scorpion enclosed its victim in a circle that 
he could not get out of, and other creatures were so un- 
wholesome that if a man merely looked at them he 



i 3 2 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

immediately withered away. The influence proper to 
each day increased or diminished the influence proper 
to each beast. There were certain moments in each 
season when anything might be looked at without any 
resultant harm ; the 28th of Thot, the 3rd, 8th, 13th, 
16th, 28th of Paophi; the 7th, nth, 25th, 30th of 
Athyr; the 2nd, 7th, 8th, 22nd, 30th of Khoîak, and so 
on, from decade to decade, every one could look on what 
he would at will, and the lion would not fascinate him, 
the scorpion would not enfold him, the antelope would 
not petrify him, no serpent would exercise on him 
his destructive power. By the side of animals who 
were harmful by nature there were others who only 
owed their perversity to the malignity of the day, for 
instance, the rat and the ox. If rats or mice had been 
dangerous in themselves Egypt would soon have been 
depopulated, for their number is legion, or the fellah 
would have had to live with his eyes closed in order 
never to see them in the house or fields. But there were 
moments when the rat, poor wretch, became terrible 
without suspecting it, by virtue of the calendar. On 
the 1 2th of Tôbi, believers were advised not to look 
at a rat, or if his eyes accidentally rested on one, to 
keep at a respectful distance; on a certain 12th of Tôbi 
the rat had once served Sokhît in one of her expedi- 
tions, and something of the virulence of the goddess had 
remained with it. The bull, too, became dangerous 
for mythological reasons at a certain fixed date. His 
body was one of those into which the gods preferred 
to enter when they descended on earth to visit mortals. 
Any one meeting a bull when he was possessed by a 
god was threatened with sudden death. People were 
careful not to kill an ox on the 20th of Thot, for the 
20th of Thot was one of the days on which it pleased 
the gods to incarnate themselves in bulls, and so in 
killing the beast a god might be injured. An ox might 



BELIEF IN LUCKY DAYS 133 

not be led by a leash on the 20th of Pharmouti, for 
fear that one of the evil spirits let loose on that day, 
knocking against the animal, might be introduced into 
it, and inspire it with the temptation to gore its leader. 
The 25th of Paophi, which, like the 20th of Thot, was 
a great day with the gods for excursions on earth, people 
avoided meeting a herd, for if one of the oxen was 
incarnated great harm ensued; the passer-by would 
certainly fall dead. 

But the worst was that on certain days men them- 
selves acquired terrible properties. People were warned 
not to contemplate the work of the fields on the nth 
and 1 2th of Pharmouti. They should not watch over 
the tillage, nor the harvest, nor the ploughing of the 
soil, for once, at that time, Montou forced the enemies 
of Râ to fulfil these servile tasks for him ; the human 
eye looking at the labourers or gardeners let loose 
misfortune against them. Even to-day the fellaheen 
do not like to be looked at or to have their doings 
observed with too close an attention ; they immediately 
suspect a jettatore, and they make a gesture or murmur 
a formula which protects them. The superstition of 
the evil eye was rife in ancient Egypt, and every sort 
of precaution was invented for guarding against those of 
either sex afflicted with the vice. The most common 
and most efficacious of the talismans with which people 
armed themselves against it was the charm of the Eye 
of Horus, the ouzaît, which an enterprising jeweller tried 
to restore to fashion a few years ago. The Eye is there 
represented with its thick eyebrow and with the marks 
of kohol, with which the Egyptians adorned the eyelids, 
for hygienic reasons as well as from coquetry. Some- 
times there could be distinguished in the pupil the tiny 
human image that all ancient peoples thought to dis- 
cern in the eye of a living being, recognizing therein 
a manifestation of the soul. Fastened to the wrist, 



134 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

worn round the neck, hung on the necklace, or sewed on 
a garment, the ouzaît was not less efficacious than the 
tiger-claws or little horns worn by the Neapolitans to- 
day. It may be seen in mystic paintings placed on 
slender legs, and strengthened by slim hands which 
stretch the bow ; it pierces the evil spirits set free by the 
jettatore, and its strength, derived from that of the Sun, 
triumphs over their attacks. 

It goes without saying that no one would start on a 
journey, or even leave the house for a walk, without 
reflecting twice. The almanack must be consulted if it 
was desired to set foot out of doors, and the restrictions 
imposed by it made things fairly awkward for those who 
resigned themselves to observing them. The reproach 
of imprudence was deserved if any one embarked on 
the Nile on Paophi 22nd, for there was risk of being 
devoured by a crocodile. On Athyr 4th, life was safe, 
but the home would be ruined by a simple expedition in 
a boat. On Athyr 19th there were whirlpools in the 
river, and it could not be ascended or descended without 
the risk of being engulfed; in fact, it was better to 
stay at home. To travel by boat on Mechir 19th or 
24th was not to be thought of. Most often, indeed, 
people barricaded themselves in their houses, and did 
not stii out, "so fearful were they of accidents. If 
they took a breath of fresh air about five o'clock in 
the afternoon of Paophi 15th, they ran a great risk. 
The serpent Ouat, one of the mythological dragons with 
which Egypt was infested, went about unrestrained all 
the evening with his train of malignant spirits; who- 
ever chanced to see him was at once struck blind. On 
the 27th of Pharmouti, the goddess Sokhît made a 
terrible disturbance among men ; it was advisable not 
to venture out of doors on any pretext from the rising 
of the sun to its setting, in order not to be haunted by 
her. If any one walked in the open air on Pakhons 5th, 



BELIEF IN LUCKY DAYS 135 

he was sure to catch a fever. In most cases the scribe 
contents himself with saying: "Do not leave the 
house," without specifying the nature of the evil by 
which the breaking of the law would be punished, but 
he nearly always mentions the reasons which made dis- 
obedience dangerous, and they are so serious that the 
reader comprehends without much elaboration : it is 
death with short shrift. The number of days tabooed 
varied according to the months, six in Paophi, seven 
in Khoîak and Phamenôt, five in Pharmouti, and so 
on ; it may be reckoned that popular superstition 
rendered useless about one-fifth of the year. 

The Egyptians were not the only people affected by 
these kinds of superstitions; the Chaldaeans, the 
Assyrians, the Elamites, all the Semitic races of the old 
world suffered equally under them, and classical nations, 
the Greeks and Romans, yielded in nothing to the 
Orientals. Hesiod, in his Works and Days, sketches a 
plan of months in which he notes their good and evil 
influences, with the tasks to be fulfilled or avoided. 
Mythology plays its part, and we learn, for instance, 
that the 5th is unlucky because of the Furies; they 
traverse the world on that date in order to chastise 
perjury. The 7th owes its sacred character to the birth 
of Apollo; it is quite safe to thresh the corn about mid- 
day, and it is good to cut wood for making beds or light 
boats. The antique world was wholly plunged in super- 
stition. Man felt himself surrounded by mysterious 
tribes, gods, genii, demons, wandering souls, elemental 
creatures of unfinished shape and almost unconscious, 
whose course crossed his, and whose life was mingled 
with his life from the day of his birth until that of his 
death. The perpetual danger with which they threat- 
ened him was all the more terrible since he did not 
perceive them as he saw men. He walked blindly in 
the midst of them, until unconsciously knocking up 



n6 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 



against them, and hurting them, he felt the effects of 
their anger. He had then to seek measures either for 
eliminating them from his path, or for warding off their 
assaults, or for verifying their presence, and for that pur- 
pose applied to the science of prognostics, to divination, 
religion, magic. He covered himself with amulets, he 
learned formulas, he inquired about the days and hours 
when the power of the spirits would be strongest, and 
if all his precautions were unavailing, at the critical 
moment he shut himself up at home to be out of reach 
of their attack. The calendar I have described, and 
others like it, instructed him on the last point, and 
they were as necessary for his safe guidance among 
the invisible spirits as astronomical or religious calen- 
dars are for the proper order of festivals and the times 
of work in town or country. 

All this seems contemptible to us now, but historians 
are very wrong systematically to neglect it. The two 
serpents of which an Ethiopian king dreamed one night, 
were certainly nothing but an illusion of sleep without 
real consistence or meaning. Yet directly the priests 
of Napata declared that they were the precursory sign 
of a conquest of Egypt, Egypt's fate was sealed. The 
Ethiopian king assembled his army, set out for the 
wars, and, as he thought that the two serpents announced 
victory, he fought so well that he won the day. We 
could quote more than one example from what we 
have deciphered on the monuments of wars and con- 
quests, the first cause of which is as futile as the dream 
of the Ethiopian. The auguries, the presages, the con- 
junctions of the stars, the influences of lucky or unlucky 
days have decided the fate of nations, and directed the 
progress of humanity during the course of the oldest 
history. And if we wish to understand that history, 
and to make our contemporaries understand it, we must 
reckon with these superstitions. 



i 



XVII 

THE EGYPTIAN ' BOOK 

The double of the Egyptians must sometimes have 
been greatly embarrassed when, after having undergone 
the last purifications, and received the last votive offer- 
ings, he found himself alone in his vault, by the side 
of his corpse. His relatives and friends on the earth 
above, full of compassion for his weakness, and of 
solicitude for his well-being in the future life, had 
heaped up around him all sorts of gifts, useful and 
useless. He had clothes, and stuffs to make them of, 
shoes, wigs, jewels, perfumes, weapons for war and for 
sport, provisions of all sorts in profusion, more things 
to drink than he knew what to do with, even servants 
obliged to wait on him, boats destined to carry him and 
his servants and his animals and his baggage along the 
canals of the other world; but this wealth itself was a 
source of care and fear to him. The weariness of living 
eternally in the tomb, shut in by the thickness of the 
walls and by virtue of the funeral incantations, was to 
die a second death. No soul hitherto accustomed to the 
open sunshine and the fresh north breeze would be 
resigned to vegetate for ever in the close atmosphere of 
two or three permanently sealed chambers. On the 
other hand, it was a difficult road which led through the 
land of the gods to the banks of the heavenly Nile on 
which the Boat of Râ made its journeys, or to the innu- 
merable islands where the good Osiris had established 
her paradise of Ialou. It was necessary to traverse more 

137 



138 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

than one strange country, to cross streams of boiling 
water and deserts infested with serpents, to fight battles 
with tribes of genii and gods who haunted certain 
districts, or to gain their good-will ; it was a long, adven- 
turous voyage, and the first doubles who undertook it 
without a guide, or a guide-book, had their work cut 
out to reach their destination safe and sound with their 
convoy of merchandise and terrified attendants. 

How did the survivors come to know this? Directly 
they were informed, they tried to come to the rescue of 
their dead friends, and, as they had a personal interest 
in facilitating the migrations of the doubles, they were 
quick to invent efficient methods. They noted the name 
and the situation of the mystic regions, the character, 
the manners of the beings who dwelt in them, the nature 
of the dangers to be avoided. Their task was the more 
complicated as paradises were numerous in Egypt, 
and manifold were the ways that led to each one of 
them. It was necessary to give information of all pos- 
sible itineraries, so that the soul might be in a position 
to choose its last sojourn, and to reach it without going 
astray. When a halting-place or a new danger was dis- 
covered, a special chapter was devoted to it, and all the 
chapters put together soon formed several works of 
varying lengths. To be of much use it should have been 
committed to memory by believers during their lifetime, 
in order that they might be ready for the great journey 
when their hour was come, but that was an obligation 
from which they preferred to be dispensed. To obviate the 
difficulties entailed by such negligence, the geography 
of the land beyond the tomb was taught after death. 
One of the priests, who dressed the corpse, sang in his 
ears the pieces of which one or other of the compilations 
was composed, or often, even, all the compilations, one 
after the other. The double retained what he wished, 
and took from it the information useful to guide him 



EGYPTIAN 'BOOK OF THE DEAD 1 139 

correctly during his expedition. It seems that this oral 
instruction sufficed for the generations that built the 
Pyramids. Later it was doubtless perceived that memory 
does not always perfectly serve those who trust to it. 
The double had not heard or understood properly, it 
forgot the formulas, mixed them up, and altering 
them, falsified their meaning, or lessened their value. 
It seemed a better plan to give them the texts that had 
hitherto simply been recited to them, written down, and 
the most important were traced on the boards of the 
coffin, on the sides of the sarcophagus, on the walls of 
the funerary cha'mber, lastly on a papyrus roll placed 
near the mummy, or under its wrappings. Copies of 
the Book of the Dead may be counted to-day by the 
hundred; the smallest European museum has at least 
a fragment. 

It has been several times translated into French, 
English, and German; one of the most distinguished 
Egyptologists, Sir Peter Le Page Renouf, was issuing a 
new interpretation of it when death interrupted his work 
in October 1897. Le Page Renouf was English, in 
spite of the French form of his name, or rather he was 
a native of Guernsey, one of those Norman islands 
which have given England so many good servants. A 
family tradition has it that his ancestor was a page of 
Duguesclin, and that the name Le Page is due to that 
ancestor's function. He took an active part in the re- 
ligious controversies of the middle of the nineteenth 
century, became an Inspector of Schools, and after- 
wards keeper of the Egyptian and Assyrian antiqui- 
ties in the British Museum. Like so many others, he 
scattered his work among the reviews, and the greater 
number of his essays have disappeared ; only those who 
have had the patience to seek out their hiding-places 
have any idea of what Egyptology owes him. His 
translation is accompanied by a commentary, in which 



140 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

the chief difficulties of the text are pointed out, and 
the mythological allusions briefly explained. 1 It is 
the clearest of those which we possess, but in these 
matters clearness is relative. The larger part of the 
prayers collected in the Book of the Dead contain 
allusions to facts or concepts which had nothing mys- 
terious about them when they were written down. The 
various legends of Osiris, or the solar myths, were 
familiar to the Egyptians of the middle class, and even 
the common people knew most of them, if not in detail, 
at least generally. It was admitted, for instance, that 
the sun changed boats during the day, and it was a 
commonplace in the schools that one was called Sakttt, 
and the other Mazît. They were not entirely alike, 
either in equipment, form, decoration, or rigging; each 
possessed particular properties, and offered the god dif- 
ferent facilities of navigation. The Theban or Mem- 
phian, learned in his religion, was ignorant of nothing 
concerning them, and their name, introduced into the 
text in this or that place, immediately turned his mind 
to a series of known events. That mythology is a dead 
letter for us, and it costs us much toil to conjure up 
ideas and images that the words Sakttt and Mazît at 
once aroused in the devout Egyptian of ancient days. 
We require hours of application and pages of com- 
mentary before catching even a vague glimpse of what 
he saw clearly on a cursory reading. Le Page Renouf's 
translation is, like the others, only accessible to the 
expert Egyptologist; without previous preparation it 
would merely present a series of words and phrases 
without apparent meaning. 

The chapters are numerous, and all the copies do not 
contain the same number; the most complete papyri 
contain from 150 to 180. They are composed of a title, 

1 Lepage-Renouf : The Book of the Dead, reprinted from the Pro- 
ceedings of the Society of Biblical Ai-chœology, Books I -VI, 1890-97. 



EGYPTIAN 'BOOK OF THE DEAD' 141 

which sets forth the object of the prayer, of a formula, 
which is the prayer itself, of a vignette, which illustrates 
the words of the text by a picture, or a series of pictures ; 
sometimes a rubric adds instructions to the dead on the 
manner of reciting the piece, or of consecrating an 
amulet in which its virtues are concentrated. The title 
and the vignette are usually the most interesting parts. 
The title sets forth the purpose which originally inspired 
its composition ; it shows the ideas of the Egyptians 
concerning the human soul, and the kind of existence 
that awaited it beyond the tomb. It was the life of this 
world transported to the next, with all its pleasures and 
all its troubles. In a vignette the defunct is seen leav- 
ing his hypogeum to reach the sojourn of his dreams. 
Staff in hand, he sets foot on the first declivities of the 
western mountain, behind which the lands of the shades 
extend infinitely. He reaches the boundary of the real 
world, and, in a second vignette, we assist at the wel- 
come given him there. A sycamore, with thick foliage 
laden with figs, marks the frontier, and a woman, thrust- 
ing half her body out of the trunk, offers the traveller 
a tray filled with loaves and fruit, and a vase full of 
water. If he refuses, he cannot go forward, he must 
go back and return to this world; if he accepts, the 
bread and water make him the vassal of the gods, and 
give him free access to the mysterious plains. He is 
obliged to use great caution in walking, to keep eyes 
open and ears alert, in order not to perish by a second 
death, which would leave nothing of him remaining. 
In a series of miniatures we see him fighting with lance 
or dagger against serpents of various sizes and various 
degrees of venom, against poisonous insects, against a 
tortoise, against a big red ass, the incarnation of the 
evil spirit, Set-Typhon. Elsewhere a boat appears to 
take him to one of the domains of Osiris; it is a fairy 
boat, and asks him questions : he has to name and 



142 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

describe in detail the parts of which the boat is made. 
The scene is realistically portrayed, the double standing 
on the bank, the hand raised in a supplicating gesture, 
the inquisitive boat, with its crew of divinities, in front 
of him. After examining these pictures, there is no 
longer any doubt of the meaning to be attached to the 
book itself; it is a guide-book and manual of conversa- 
tion for the other world, for the use of souls in quest of 
a suitable paradise. 

The titles and vignettes, then, of the compilation 
explain themselves, but difficulties accumulate as soon 
as we have crossed that threshold and try to penetrate 
the formulas. The greater part of them are the actual 
speeches pronounced by the defunct in such or such 
circumstances indicated by the title. The infernal ser- 
pents would not easily have succumbed to his lance had 
he not combined the power of magic words with the 
action of his arm. The orator is careful not to mention 
that he is a human double, for such a confession would 
have encouraged his adversary, and left him little chance 
of success. He exclaims loudly that he is a god, several 
gods, all the gods, that on many occasions he has 
massacred redoubtable enemies, that no one has ever 
resisted him. If the oration is given without a mistake, 
with appropriate tone and gesture, the effect is irresist- 
ible ; it acts on the senses of the serpent like an incanta- 
tion, it makes him believe that he is confronted with the 
personages evoked, and not with a double trembling with 
fear, so his strength leaves him, and he falls after more 
or less hard fighting. The Egyptians are fond of talking ; 
many of the chapters are fifty lines long, and to recite 
them in accordance with the proper ceremony would 
take at least half-an-hour. Some became almost cele- 
brated as soon as they were deciphered, as, for instance, 
Chapter 125, which contains what Champollion called 
the Negative Confession. The double, taken before the 



EGYPTIAN 'BOOK OF THE DEAD' 143 

Council of Osiris, calls each of the councillors to wit- 
ness, and swears to him that he has not committed any 
of the acts blamed by custom or law; the purity of the 
moral teaching, the spirit of gentleness and charity 
with which his words are imbued, has called forth the 
admiration of persons least inclined to become enthusi- 
astic about Egyptian matters. The case is, unhappily, 
somewhat unusual; mythological allusions predominate, 
and make the reading difficult even for experts. It is 
not that the thoughts lack elevation or poetry, or that 
the form is without literary merit, but all the images 
and concepts that the Egyptians put into it belong to 
an order of ideas so foreign to ours that a prolonged 
effort is required before we can enter into them. When, 
after careful study, we succeed in discovering the pas- 
sages which must have most impressed the Egyptians, 
we are able to perceive their beauty although we still 
despair of making others feel what we have learned to 
feel ; the amount of detailed explanation required makes 
too great a demand on the attention. 



XVIII 

EGYPTIAN ANIMATED STATUES 

The Egyptians, high and low, did nothing without 
consulting the gods. Whether it was a journey to be 
undertaken by an ordinary individual, or a fleet to be 
dispatched by a queen to the shores of the Indian Ocean, 
both citizen and sovereign would repair to the temple to 
receive the advice of the divinity, and his reply in- 
fluenced their final decision. The ceremonial was not 
the same in both cases : the man of the people explained 
his business to the priest, who put him into relation with 
the god and obtained a decision for him ; the Pharaoh, 
himself a god and the son of a god, addressed his divine 
father or brother without a go-between. But whatever 
the rite or the ceremony, the deed and the result were 
identical in both cases. The god represented by his 
image, heard the request, indicated his advice by some 
means or other, and the believer acted in accordance with 
the expression of the supposed superhuman will. 

The methods used by Amon, or Phtah, or Osiris, or 
indeed any of the divinities worshipped in the temples, 
for commanding or advising their believers were in- 
finitely varied; they sent prophetic dreams, they spoke 
in a mysterious voice, they revealed themselves by differ- 
ent sounds, by actions, by signs, and what had at first 
been a spontaneous manifestation on their part, their 
servants here below, the priests and magicians, learned 
to obtain by certain practices of unfailing effect. Their 

statues especially were privileged to give the answers 

i 44 



1 



EGYPTIAN ANIMATED STATUES 145 

asked of them, not any sort of statue, but idols made 
and prepared expressly for that duty. To my knowledge 
we do not possess any specimen of them ; as far as we 
can conjecture, they were most often of wood, painted 
or gilded like the ordinary statues, but made of jointed 
pieces which could be moved. The arm could lift itself 
as high as the shoulder or elbow, so that the hand could 
place itself on an object and hold it or let it go. The 
head moved on the neck, it bent back and fell again to 
its place. The legs do not seem to have been jointed, 
and it is improbable that the complicated business of 
walking was exacted of them. The statue, now finished 
in the image of the divinity for whom it provided cor- 
poreal form, had to be animated ; the being of whom it 
was the portrait was evoked for that purpose, and by 
means of operations still imperfectly known a portion 
of himself was projected into the wood, a soul, a 
double, a power which never more left it. In this way 
terrestrial gods were constructed, exact counterparts of 
the celestial gods, their ambassadors on earth, as it were, 
capable of protecting, punishing, and teaching mankind, 
of sending them dreams, of speaking an oracle. When 
they were addressed, they had recourse to one of two 
methods, gesture or voice. They took up the word, and 
pronounced the verdict suitable to the business in hand 
either in a few words or in a long speech. They moved 
arms and head to an invariable rhythm. It was not 
considered miraculous, it was part of everyday life, and 
consultation of the gods belonged to the usual functions 
of the chiefs of the state, kings or queens. The monu- 
ments present numberless examples, in the great Theban 
epoch and in the time that followed it. 

Here is one of the most ancient, and I quote it first, 

because the god speaks directly. The queen Hatshop- 

souîtou contemplated the dispatch of a squadron to the 

regions that produce sweet spices, but the voyage was 

10 



i 4 6 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

long and dangerous, the route ill defined, the situation 
of the incense districts uncertain, and she hesitated to 
enter on an adventure of so doubtful an issue. So one 
day she repaired to the Temple of Karnak, and confided 
her anxiety to her lord Amonrâ, the patron of her race. 
" When the sovereign had poured out her supplications 
before the master of Karnak, a command was heard in 
the holy place, a counsel of the god himself, to explore 
the ways that lead to Pouanît and to traverse the roads 
that lead to the Ports of Incense ; and on their return to 
bring the products of that Divine Land to the god who had 
modelled the beauties of the queen." Thus encouraged 
she dispatched six vessels on a voyage of discovery, and 
when they returned laden with sweet spices, the god 
thanked them with more speeches, the tenor of which 
,may be read on one of the walls of the temple of Deîr El- 
Baharî. 1 Conversations between gods and kings were 
not rare in the temples, and it is not without reason 
that most of the legends that accompany the pictures 
engraved on the walls are in dialogue form ; the decora- 
tive custom corresponded to an almost everyday reality. 
In other cases the statue was silent, and indicated its 
opinion by a gesture; it nodded its head twice emphatic- 
ally to say yes. One of the most curious of these pieces, 
found in the Temple of Khonsou at Thebes, tells how a 
Syrian princess, sister-in-law of Ramses II, fell ill, and 
was for a long while possessed by a demon or by the soul 
of a dead person. As the Asiatic magicians did not suc- 
ceed in freeing her from the spirit, her father insisted that 
his son-in-law should apply to the cleverest exorciser in 
Egypt. But that personage did not consider himself 
strong enough to struggle with the evil spirit, and so 
recourse was had to a more efficacious intervention, to 
that of Khonsou himself. Ramses went to the temple, 
and addressed the statue : " Dear Lord, behold me here 

1 Cf. Chapter VIII. 




The God Khonsou, Head of a Statue found in the Temple of Khonsou, at Karnak. 
pace 146. 



EGYPTIAN ANIMATED STATUES 147 

before thee for the sake of the daughter of the prince of 
Bakhtan." Then he ordered the image which drove out 
evil spirits to be brought, and placing it in front of the 
other said : " Dear Lord, if thou wilt deign to turn thy 
face towards this statue, made after thy image and which 
drives out evil spirits, we may venture to send it to 
Bakhtan." And again Khonsou nodded his head em- 
phatically twice. Then Ramses replied: " Endow it 
with thy power so that I may send it to Bakhtan to 
relieve the daughter of the prince." And again 
Khonsou nodded his head emphatically twice. His 
consent gained, the transference of the effluvium which 
permitted the statue to do its work had to be effected. 

The ceremony was quite simple. The person or ob- 
ject to be thus treated was placed, kneeling, crouching 
or upright as circumstance demanded, the back towards 
the object or person who was to treat them. After a 
few formalities the statue or the person raised his hand, 
and made several passes over the back of the other's 
neck. The effluvium flowed into the recipiendary, who 
kept it until having himself put his hands on the person 
to be cured, he suddenly found himself, as it were, 
empty. And, in fact, Khonsou arrived at Bakhtan, 
made the passes over the princess, and the divine power 
expelled the demon, after a short interview with him and 
with the priest. 

It is clear that the statues really spoke in a loud and 
intelligible voice; they actually moved their heads and 
hands, and as they certainly did not do these things of 
themselves, some one had to do it for them. The Temple 
had, in fact, a priest or a class of priests whose duty it 
was to do these things. Their function was not secret, 
they performed it openly in the sight and with the 
knowledge of all. They had their appointed place in 
the ceremonies and processions, and in the sacerdotal 
hierarchy, and all the people knew that the voice or 



i 4 8 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

hand of the god was theirs, and that they pulled the 
wires so that he nodded his head at the right moment. 
It was none of those pious frauds such as we generally 
suspect in like circumstances. Every one knew that the 
divine consultation was accomplished by this purely 
human intervention. Such being the case, we may ask 
how, not only the people, but the scribes, the nobles, 
and the kings could put confidence in such counsels. 
And if in later times, at least, it became a ceremony of 
tradition, kept up out of respect for antiquity, but to 
which no importance was any longer attached, the 
testimony of the monuments compels us to acknowledge 
that it was regarded seriously until the decay of pagan- 
ism, and that all who took part in it were filled with 
respect for the task they undertook. They were brought 
up from childhood to believe that divine souls gave life 
to the statues, and to approach them with emotion and 
reverential fear. Each time that a believer needed their 
services, they prepared themselves by prayers and 
ceremonies that reminded them of the seriousness of an 
act, the power of which they believed was absolute. 
Their condition of mind was akin to that in which the 
modern priest goes up to the altar. Directly he has 
put on the sacerdotal robes, and recited the first sacra- 
mental words, he no longer belongs to himself but to 
the sacrifice he is going to consummate, he knows 
that the elements will change into the precious flesh and 
blood at his voice and gesture, and enters on the work 
he is sure of accomplishing without any doubts. With 
certain reservations it was just the same in Egypt. 
When the prophet had finished his preparations, and 
stood near the statue ready to raise his voice for it and 
make it move, he did not doubt for an instant that the 
god would enter into him, seize him, inspire him ; he 
thought that a force would lay hold of his being, and 
dictate the words and move his hand. I admit the 



EGYPTIAN ANIMATED STATUES 149 

possibility that fraud may sometimes have had a part 
in his actions, but could it not be said that the god, 
foreknowing all, so arranged things that the fault of his 
servant would favour his designs? The prevaricating 
priest, thinking to force the divine purpose and to de- 
ceive the believer, was a victim of his own manoeuvre, 
and only declared what Amon wished him to declare. 

The gods, then, directly governed the life of the 
Egyptians and the policy of their kings. They had 
their appointed place in the deliberations, and their 
decrees might seldom be disregarded. Such intervention, 
which we should find very tiresome, was not so regarded 
by any of the nations of antiquity, and we find it per- 
petually in Assyria and Chaldaea. The kings of 
Nineveh addressed themselves to Ishtar of Arbeles, or 
Adad or Shamash, and we possess a series of their con- 
sultations on a number of questions relating to the 
domestic or foreign affairs of the empire under Asarhad- 
don and Assourbanabal. In short, the gods ruled the 
ancient world, and its contemporaries were not far 
wrong when they doubled every war between men with 
a second war between the gods. The prophetic statues 
spoke for both sides when the armies came to close 
quarters, and their commands did not cease to arrive 
direct as long as the campaign lasted. It was indeed 
themselves who were conquered if the fortunes of war 
went against their nation, and they shared its fate. 
When the victor did not kill them in conquering them, 
he took them prisoners, and placed them in the Temples 
of their adversaries to serve as slaves as much as by 
way of trophies. If perchance they were later restored 
to their former owners, an inscription was carefully 
engraved on them commemorating their defeat and 
captivity. 



XIX 

WHAT THE EGYPTIANS SCRIBBLED ON THEIR WALLS 

It is certain that tourists are gradually spoiling the 
monuments of Egypt by writing their names on them 
in big or small letters. Persons of taste are irritated 
when they come across them, and the directors of the 
antiquities exhaust themselves in searching for hard 
words in which to censure such practices in their reports. 
It is their strict duty to do this, and I, like the rest, have 
done my share. And yet, if the archaeologists and his- 
torians of to-day would reflect a little, what fine fellows 
these inscription-makers are, and what an amount of in- 
genious work they are preparing for the students of the 
future ! Henri Durand of Paris inscribed his name in 
1882 on one of the blocks of the Great Pyramid. John 
Brown cut his in the neighbourhood in 1883, Fritz Miiller 
scrawled his above the other two in 1884, and they may 
be tracked from Gizeh to the First Cataract through the 
temples and tombs ; towards the end of the journey they 
become bolder, and each ventures on admiring or humor- 
ous reflections in accordance with the spirit of his nation. 
They are too near us to seem anything but absurd, but 
let a hundred years pass by, and distance will endow 
them with a certain prestige. A century ago, French 
soldiers quartered at Edfou, in the dark chambers of the 
Pylon, amused themselves by tracing legends and draw- 
ings on the wall. Names, dates, hearts burning with 
protestations of affection for their native land, a fine 
windmill that still exists, perhaps, in some corner of 

150 






jii- . .... > -ir. % 




SCRIBBLINGS ON WALLS 151 

France are to be seen; the cavalry fraternized with the 
infantry in its love of the native soil and its contempt for 
grammar, but I do not know which of the two arms pro- 
claimed in its pride, the French are conquerors every- 
where. It is a piece of France which still lives in the 
shade of the old temple of Horus, light cavalry, grena- 
diers, light infantry, a hundred or a hundred and fifty 
men in all, and a very slight effort of the imagination 
suffices to see them in the course of their monotonous 
life. Drill, continual sentry duty at the top of the two 
towers that guard the Nile, or the outlets into the Libyan 
desert, reconnoitring in the still insubordinate villages 
in order to reach the posts of Esneh or Daraou, skirm- 
ishes, and perchance a comrade mournfully buried in the 
little cemetery on the north side of the town ; in the inter- 
vals, without forgetting the girls of France, they courted 
the girls of Egypt who, judging by certain features of 
European physiognomy to be seen among the inhabit- 
ants, were not indifferent to their affection. Menou forgot 
them when he evacuated the Said in 1800; they stayed 
at their post, in spite of assaults, for a few months until 
a Bey rescued them and enrolled them in his service. 
They then formed the largest contingent of the French 
Mamelukes who played an important part in the early 
wars of Mehemet Ali. 

The Egyptians of Pharaoh travelled at times, and, like 
Cook's tourists, scribbled with all their might and main 
on the monuments they came across. The pyramid of 
Meydoum had so stoutly resisted the excavators, even 
Mariette, that it was thought to be untouched, and 
great things were expected of it. When I entered it in 
1 88 1, the first thing I saw was a scribe's name, the scribe 
Sokari, written in ink on the ledge of the door, and by 
its side mention of his colleague, Amonmosou. They 
scribbled under the XVIIIth Dynasty, more than 2000 
years after the pyramid was built, and they went to see 



152 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

the tomb of King Snofrouî just as we visit that of 
Charlemagne at Aix-la-Chapelle. They penetrated into 
the corridors that led to the vault, a thing seldom 
done; it meant a difficult climb up the north side of the 
pyramid to reach the opening, and many hesitated to 
risk their necks. They stayed at the foot of the pile, in 
the little chapel where the worship of the Pharaoh had 
formerly been celebrated, and as they were not out of 
breath with climbing, or thinking of the chances of acci- 
dent offered by a perpendicular descent, there was 
nothing to prevent them writing their names in a pro- 
minent place; they conjured up their classical memories, 
and engrossed an enthusiastic formula on one of the 
blocks. The son of the same Amonmosou who so briefly 
announced his arrival, as shown above, was more elo- 
quent than his father, and told in diffuse language how 
in the year XLI of Thoutmôsis III, " he went to see the 
beautiful chapel of Snofrouî. He discovered the interior 
to be like the sky when Râ, the Sun, rose, and he 
exclaimed, ' the heavens rain myrrh and so an incense 
falls on the front of Snofrouî's chapel.' " And as if such 
noble poetry would not have been acceptable to the soul 
of the sovereign without the addition of some substantial 
wish, he addressed himself to future generations and 
asked them to pray for him. " All of you who pass by 
here and read these words, whether you be scribes, 
magicians or priests, if you love life and desire the praise 
of the gods of your towns, and to transmit your offices 
to your children, and then to be buried in the necropolis 
of Memphis in old age, after a long sojourn on earth, 
say : ' Offerings to Osiris, Râ, Amon, Anubis, that these 
gods may grant all imaginable provisions to the spirit of 
King Snofrouî and Queen Marisônkhis his wife.' " He 
was succeeded later by others who, finding his prose to 
their taste, appropriated pieces of it, and recopied on 
their own account what he had said on his. 



SCRIBBLINGS ON WALLS 153 

Those old travellers were not more critical or discerning 
in the objects of their admiration than our tourists are. 
They went into ecstasies over everything shown them 
provided it was very old, and if they deciphered the texts 
engraved on the tombs, they did not understand them 
properly. One of the feudal nobles buried at Beni- 
Hassan told that he had governed a town, the name of 
which, exactly translated into English, is the Nurse- 
Cheops. Had it been destroyed since his time? At any 
rate it was no longer known under the XVIIIth Dynasty, 
and the scribes who then climbed up to the hypogeum 
had never heard it mentioned. Seeing the name of 
Cheops in several places, they concluded that the paint- 
ings had been made for that king, and that they were in 
his house, in his syringe, and then they recorded their 
opinion in a half-dozen ecstatic scrawls: "Here came 
the scribe Thoutiî," or the scribe Amonmosou, or the 
scribe Raî. " When I came to view the beautiful chapel 
of Cheops, I found its interior like the heavens, when the 
sun rises and well provided with fresh incense." They 
fall into error with much ease, their appreciation is 
monotonous, and many of them are content merely to 
testify in five or six words that they had been there. 
Others, however, are kind enough to confide to us under 
what king they honoured the monument with their 
presence, in what year, under what circumstances, and 
their vanity has made them the unconscious auxiliaries 
of learning. It was in the year XL of such a sovereign, 
just when his Majesty was sailing from Memphis to 
Thebes to inaugurate a temple, or when he returned 
from his third campaign in Ethiopia, and the king, and 
his buildings, and his journeys, and his victories would 
be unknown to us if one of the scribes of the escort had 
not been seized with the passionate desire of writing at 
the sight of a wall placed well in the public view. Thou- 
sands of others were victims of a like mania during 



154 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

centuries, and thanks to them we glean dates, facts, royal 
cartouches everywhere ; dynasties are put together again 
with what they teach us; piece by piece the history of 
Egypt is built up. They also add details about their 
own family, their own particular destiny, the reason of 
their going there, and that reason is often very extra- 
ordinary. The Egyptians prided themselves on being 
consummate magicians, and then, as now, the ceme- 
teries, especially those which were deserted, were the 
places best suited to the sorcerers' operations. Aban- 
doned spirits, who died of hunger in their tombs, were 
inclined to assist the works of magic which might pro- 
cure them food. The pyramids themselves served as a 
refuge for good or evil beings, and a rite performed at 
the due hour, with the necessary words, would make 
them for a brief space subservient to the desires of the 
operator. 

In the year L of Ramses II, the scribe Panoua, who 
lived at Memphis or in the environs, went one night to 
the tomb of a certain Shopsisouphtah, who had flourished 
twenty centuries before and in his time had possessed 
the reputation of great skill in supernatural matters. He 
brought the suitable books of magic, arid, taking up his 
position in the chapel, set himself to perform the 
ceremonies for evoking the spirits. If everything went 
well an enormous serpent would appear to him, the 
serpent which hides itself in the pyramid of the Pharaoh 
Sahourî, and in the form of which the soul of the king 
was pleased to reveal itself. Panoua wished to inquire of 
him for a recipe which would prolong his earthly exist- 
ence to the age of no, an age that no mortal had been 
able to go beyond. The prayers were powerful, for they 
were taken from books compiled by the god Phtah him- 
self, but doubtless the time was unfavourable; he went 
on to the eleventh incantation without success, then grew 
discouraged and returned home, but before leaving, in- 



SCRIBBLINGS ON WALLS 155 

scribed on the wall in a beautiful running hand an exact 
account of the unfruitful séance. Elsewhere, sick per- 
sons, after consulting an oracle, scribbled a compliment 
to the god or goddess who healed them in miraculous 
fashion, on a neighbouring rock or on a wall of the 
chapel. One believer uttered a cry of anguish to his 
patron : " Do not desert me, Oh Ra-Harmakhis !" and 
signed himself, " the scribe Thoutmôsis of the Necro- 
polis." An employé in the canals and irrigation depart- 
ment registered the beginning of the rise, or the day the 
dykes were broken : " The year X, the 13th of the second 
month of summer, that day there was a great rising of 
the Nile." Contented persons had nothing but praise 
for their superiors or equals, and confided their feelings 
to the walls. Discontented persons acted in the same 
way, and so we now possess some of the satires in which 
their ill-humour found vent. The archivist Phtahshadou 
has forgotten to tell us his master's misdeeds; he was 
contented to write a couplet on the rock at Thebes in 
which he vigorously lashed his chief. " My master's 
order, it is a crocodile. Its tooth is in the water, but 
where ? Its teeth are in the canal on the west, and its eye 
winks." It seems to have been considered most extremely 
comic, and three-quarters of the inhabitants of Thebes 
were suffocated with laughter for weeks, but the flavour of 
the gibe has evaporated, and many annotations are 
needed to recall it. It must first be remembered that the 
crocodile is a treacherous animal that keeps in muddy 
water in the canal all day, pretending to be asleep in order 
not to alarm his prey; the paintings in the tombs show 
him stretched out in a meditative attitude, his tail quiet, 
his mouth shut, with an innocent air as if he was only 
a big, harmless leopard. At the moment when it is least 
expected, a turn of the tail, two bites of the teeth, a 
plunge, and a sheep, a dog, a man has disappeared. 
Phtahshadou received an order of harmless aspect but 



156 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

dangerous to carry out, and he compared it to the 
felonious crocodile, but he did not know where the danger 
would come in; he only guessed that he risked his life, 
and therefore he spoke of the canal which was on the 
west and which had to be crossed in order to reach the 
tomb. That is the explanation, but even so, many of us 
will not perceive the humour of the piece any more than 
we did before. How many centuries will be needed 
before the satires of to-day will require an archaeological 
commentary, and throw those who still believe in the 
tradition of French wit into wondering astonishment? 

A German, Spiegelberg, a careful student and com- 
mentator of these inscriptions, like all of his race, has 
collected several thousands of them at Thebes alone, and 
has not exhausted the material. The more he transcribes, 
the more he discovers. I do not complain, for these 
scratchings tell us new things about the old Egyptian 
people, so long buried, so lately exhumed. How, then, 
can we continue to blame the European tourists who 
disfigure the walls, when we copy and study with such 
tender care the slightest scribblings of their ancient 
predecessors ? 



XX 

EGYPTIAN LOVE POETRY 

When we look at a mummy in the Turin, or any other 
European museum, and see a packet of dry bones 
barely covered with a brown skin, and features con- 
tracted by the embalmment into a sad or grotesque 
grimace, some imagination is required to restore the 
elegant, slender girl, whose subtle charms intoxicated 
the young gallants of Thebes during her youth, or even 
the old woman, deformed and faded, who, dreaming in 
the evening by candle-light of her former lovers, croons, 
in low tones, the love-songs of her youth. Go into 
another room of the museum, and ask for the case of 
papyri to be opened; there you will find a collection 
of these songs, mutilated, stained, full of lacunae, but 
sufficiently legible in many places for long fragments 
to be authoritatively translated, and to inform us how 
passion was expressed amongst a people destined to 
end as numbered exhibits in the glass cases of our 
museums. The remains were collected and translated 
first by Goodwin, 1 then by myself; 2 they have just 
been studied for a third time by Max Millier, a German 
scholar settled in America. 3 The translation is well 
done, and the commentary clear, if occasionally too exotic 
in expression ; the work is one of those which may be 
read with interest by persons who are not experts, and if 

1 Goodwin : " The Papyrus Harris," No. 400, in the Transactions of 
the Society of Biblical Archœology, Vol. iv, pp. 380-388. 

2 Maspero : Études Égyptiennes, Vol. i, pp. 216-259. 

3 Max Miiller : Die Liebespoesie der Alten sEgypter, Leipzig, 1899. 

157 



158 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

it contains doubtful passages which invite discussion by 
Egyptologists, the whole gives a faithful rendering of 
the style of the original. 

Love poems must have been very numerous in 
Egyptian literature. We already possess more or less con- 
siderable fragments of three collections written during 
the second Theban epoch, about the thirteenth century 
b.c., and fragments of other pieces have been found even 
on funerary stelae. It is certain that a portion at least of 
the little pieces then collected by the scribes were of much 
earlier date, and had long been orally current. They 
formed a common reserve in which lovers dipped at 
will, and on which each embroidered themes in accord- 
ance with his special needs. The musicians recited 
them to the accompaniment of the theorbo, harp or lute, 
in private houses or in the streets, just as the singers 
and almehs of our day make Arab verses in Cairo, or in 
Upper Egypt. If any one who has lived in districts in 
which European influence is not too predominant, will 
carry his present experiences back a thousand years, he 
will be easily able to reconstruct those ancient concerts. 
In the paintings of the Theban hypogeums we see the 
executants with their dress, their instruments, their 
gestures, their audience. The manuscripts of our 
museums suggest the ideas and words which animated 
the picture. The effect produced on the audience was 
doubtless similar to those described in so curious a 
manner in the Arabian Nights. The minstrel revelled 
in prolonged roulades and strange conceits, he sighed 
during the tender passages, he wept or sobbed when the 
hero or heroine sang of their despair, and he accentuated 
the intensity of his different feelings by suppressed gut- 
tural exclamations still affected by the artist of to-day. 
I have sometimes tried to adapt one or other of the old 
pieces to the Arab melodies heard on the Nile, often with 
success. We can imagine that the old airs, now lost, 



EGYPTIAN LOVE POETRY 159 

were modulated in the same way as modern ones, accom- 
panied by arpeggios on stringed instruments, or by the 
simultaneous beating of tambourines. 

The motives employed in the three collections are 
identical with those of the Arabs, and some have a 
modern appearance. It is now the lover, now his lady, 
or, to use the ancient term, his sister. The expression 
is characteristic of the Egyptian family, where the sister 
by father and mother was by right the favourite wife of 
her brother, but the custom held good for all other 
women, and here it designates the mistress generally, 
whatever her social rank, lady or servant, young girl or 
courtesan. In one of the pieces at the beginning she 
seems to have nothing more to refuse her lover, and he 
describes the charms she reveals with significant 
vivacity, but elsewhere things do not seem to be so far 
advanced ; the lover complains of the fair one's severity, 
and invents tricks to bring her to his house. " I shall 
keep my bed at home, and as I am sick, my neighbours 
will come and see me, my sister will come with them ; 
she will make the physicians ashamed, for she well 
knows my malady!" If that artifice does not succeed, 
he thinks of introducing himself into her house among 
her visitors : " My sister's villa; ... ah ! if I might be its 
porter ! Even if my sister were vexed with me, I should 
listen to her angry voice like a little child trembling 
with fear." This doubtful favour does not long content 
him, and he asks for more : " Oh ! that I were her black 
slave, she who is always with her ! I should see all the 
beauty of her body !" He would be the ring she wears 
on her finger, the garland of flowers that surrounds her 
neck and caresses her breast; at need he would have no 
scruple in giving her a love-potion which would decide 
her to open her door. He even undertakes a pilgrimage 
to the temples of Memphis, in the hope that the gods 
invoked by him will intervene in his " favour: I go 



i6o NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

down the river in a boat, the water stirred by the rowing 
of the crew ; my bouquet of myrtle on my shoulder, I 
direct my course to the city of Onkhtaouî, and I shall say 
to Phtah : ' Give me my sister, this night.' " At length 
he obtains the object of his desire, and his mistress joins 
him at the trysting-place : "When I see my sister 
coming, my heart beats fast, my arms open to enfold 
her; my heart rejoices with everlasting joy when my 
lady arrives. If she embraces me, and her arms open 
for me, it is as if I were anointed with the perfumes of 
Arabia, with the sweetest odours ! If she kisses me with 
her half-opened lips, I am intoxicated without need of 

beer!" 

But it is not the man who plays the chief part in these 
erotic collections ; the woman is on the stage more often 
than he is, the woman deserted, or fearing to be so. 
She enjoyed so much liberty in Egypt that the Greeks 
thought her all-powerful in the family, and her husband 
was her slave. It was she who most often took the initia- 
tive, and ran to meet desire. She seized the first pretext 
to offer herself, perhaps one of the hunting parties in 
the marshes, many of which are depicted on the walls 
of the tombs. " The beauties of thy sister, the beloved 
of thy heart, go down into the meadows, oh, my dearest 
brother ! my heart does what may be agreeable to thee, 
and all it may please thee to invent, I say to thee, ' It 
is done.' I have gone to the hiding-place, trap in hand, 
and my cage and my case. All the birds of Arabia 
come down on Egypt, perfumed with myrrh, and he who 
flies above my head has pricked my bait, bringing his 
odour from Arabia, his feet full of sweet-smelling gums. 
My heart burns that we should take them together, I 
alone with thee, and that I should make thee hear the 
shrill voice of my bird perfumed with myrrh. If I obtain 
that thou art there where I am, with me, I will manage 
my trap, oh, my dearest love, thou who comest to his 



EGYPTIAN LOVE POETRY 161 

beloved!" Her dear love does not respond to the 
appeal; she laments, forgets to watch her trap, lets the 
game escape. " The voice of the wild goose who has 
touched the bait is heard, but thy love is not for me, and 
I do not know how to free myself from it. I will remove 
my nets, but what shall I say to my mother, to whom 
I return each day, laden with the birds I have caught ? 
I only set my trap to-day to take thy love prisoner." 
Nothing would be easier than to restore in detail the 
picture briefly indicated by the poet; it would suffice to 
take one of the paintings from a Theban tomb that 
represents hunting with nets, and to put them in charge 
of the love-lorn girl instead of in that of the customary 
slaves. The theme is often repeated, with variants, that 
show what a favourite one it was. Sometimes the joy of 
love is described. " The voice of the turtle-dove 
is heard," she says; " here is the dawn, and, weary as 
I am, where shall I go ? Not so, my beauteous bird ! 
While you disputed with me, I found my brother in 
his bed, and my heart more joyful than can be 
expressed; for I shall never leave him more, but, hand 
in hand, I shall go with him through all the beautiful 
places; he makes me the first of women, he who does 
makes glad my heart." Then he deserts her, and the 
laments of the unhappy woman, who does not accept 
the rupture, are poignant: " I keep my face turned to- 
wards the door, for that way comes my brother. My 
two eyes watch the road, my two ears listen, I turn 
cold, for my brother's love is my sole possession, and 
about all that concerns him my heart will never be 
silent. And see, he sends me a messenger, swift of 
: oot, as soon there as gone, to tell me — ' I am delayed.' 
Ah ! say, rather, that thou hast found another mistress Î 
Oh ! thou whose face is false, why break the heart of 
another by thy infidelity?" 

If the structure of these pieces is closely examined, 



i62 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

some attempt at style, a refinement of expression, a 
certain grace is to be recognized. Some of them are 
conceived almost in the manner of the Italian stornelli. 
They begin with the name of a flower, on which the poet 
plays for several phrases; unfortunately, the rhyming 
of the syllables, to which he has recourse in order to com- 
pare this or that virtue of his mistress with the flower's 
name, cannot be put into any modern language, and 
it makes a literal translation almost impossible. The 
other rhythms are more easily perceived, and if we do not 
always succeed in realizing the special charm that the 
choice of a particular word, or the employment of certain 
grammatical turns, gives to the thought, the development 
of the thought, at any rate, remains, and in places is so 
transparent and natural that we find pleasure in follow- 
ing it even in its modern garb. I have more than once 
in Egypt uncorked a bottle of essence picked up in a 
tomb. It did not exhale any definite perfume, but a 
vague odour, of which it could not be said that it was 
either agreeable or unpleasant, and the sensation of 
which vanished directly a definition of it was attempted. 
If we try to analyze the form of these love songs, the 
poetry contained in them would vanish in the same 
way; it must be seized quickly and enjoyed without 
plan or purpose, without attempting to define its nature 
or to analyze its component parts. 



! 



XXI 

CAN THE PRONUNCIATION OF THE HIEROGLYPHIC INSCRIP- 
TIONS BE DISCOVERED? 

Experts in Egyptology know that the little animals 
in single-file processions scattered over the Egyptian 
monuments are signs of letters or syllables, and that each 
possesses its fixed value, with which for the most part 
we are familiar. If on a sarcophagus in the Louvre 
you come across a crouching hare with its ears, and what 
ears ! pricked, and a horned serpent gliding behind it, 
any Egyptologist will explain to you in a couple of 
words that the hare represents a verb comprising an 
ou and an n, that the serpent is the pronoun of the 
third person singular masculine, and corresponds to 
our letter /, and lastly, that the whole is transcribed 
ou + n + f, and means he is. It is a fine result, and Cham- 
pollion as well as his pupils had cause for congratulation 
when they had obtained it; it has since been registered 
in all the grammars of hieroglyphics of which beginners 
avail themselves, and for a long time there the science 
began and ended. But this combination of the three 
sounds ou + n + f is not easy to pronounce off-hand, and 
instinctively professors and students have introduced a 
vowel between n and /, the weakest and least compromis- 
ing of the vowels, a slightly open é. 1 Those who read 
.Egyptian aloud, a pleasure granted to few persons in 
[this world, are accustomed to say oun-éf. But did the 
Egyptians themselves pronounce it that way, and is it 

1 Pronounce as in French. 
163 



1 64 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

possible to discover what their pronunciation was ? It 
was contested at first a priori, and I have not forgotten 
the indulgent scepticism with which I was greeted when 
nearly a quarter of a century ago I not only declared that 
the problem could be solved, but even sketched out a 
solution. The years that have passed since then have 
destroyed many prejudices and removed many doubts; 
a German, Sethe, has placed at the beginning of a 
big volume on the Egyptian verb long introductory 
chapters forming a veritable treatise on Egyptian pro- 
nunciation. 1 I am not sure if he has chosen the best 
way to reach the goal he aimed at; it is enough for me 
to attest that the problem, at first considered insoluble, 
is now one of those that some students claim to have 
solved. 

No one any longer doubts that the value of the hiero- 
glyphic signs has been discovered, and that translations 
of historical or literary inscriptions hidden in them can 
be furnished. But it is not in this case a question of 
transcribing in a modern language the thought contained 
in these ancient works; it is a question of restoring the 
fashion in which the thought vibrated in the ears of those 
who expressed it, to find again the cadence, the modula- 
tion, the accent, at need the changes of tone it has under- 
gone in the course of ages. We no longer hear it, and 
no one has heard it for hundreds of years, but other 
races whose language we know did hear it at the time 
when it was still spoken, and they made notes of what 
they heard. The first time that sailors or Greek mer- 
cenaries set foot on the shores of the Delta, they were 
obliged to learn to speak the words most needed in daily 
intercourse, and some of them, chiefly proper names, 
names of towns, names of kings, names of individuals, 
names of gods, ended by getting written down in Greek 
letters on the tablets of Herodotus, or in the works of | 
1 Sethe : Das AZgyptische Verbum, Vol. i, pp. 3-33. 



HIEROGLYPHIC INSCRIPTIONS 165 

other Greek historians. When, later, Alexander had 
brought Egypt under the Macedonian rule, numbers of 
such words were inserted in public and private acts, in 
the registers of the corvées or of the taxes, in con- 
tracts of marriage or of sale, in receipts of tolls or cus- 
toms, and they may now be read there by the hundred. 
Egyptian names were for the most part formed from 
terms borrowed from the very foundation of the language, 
ethical terms, names of trades or of divinities, of objects 
or of animals. Many persons were called Lenègre, 
Lerat, Lachatte, and their names were pronounced like 
the same words in the current idiom from which they 
were formed. Those who in France have friends called 
Lenormant, Picart, Lelièvre, Lebourgeois Lalance make 
no difference in sound between those names and the 
common terms, Normand, Picard, lièvre, bourgeois, or 
lance; sometimes the proper name betrays dialectical 
divergences, as in Leleu, Lecat, Lequien, by the side of 
Leloup, Lechat, Lechien. It was the same in Egypt; 
lord Pouhôri, otherwise the Dog, has preserved for us 
the pronunciation ouhôri that the word for dog had when 
the Greek scribes fixed its name for the first time. If we 
reflect that we already have four or five thousand native 
names thus clad in Greek letters, it is clear what a re- 
source these inscriptions can become for restoring the 
pronunciation of the hieroglyphics. There are several 
hundreds of isolated words, of nouns accompanied by an 
adjective, even of short phrases which come to us as an 
echo of the Egypt of the Ptolemies. In writing Ephôn- 
oukhos, a name which means he is living, the Greeks 
have taught us that the verb corresponding to he is, and 
the adjective corresponding to living, are pronounced ef 
and onoukhou in Egyptian. Such examples furnish the 
material which will restore the phonetics of several of 
the paradigms of which Egyptian grammar is composed. 
The Greeks made these transcriptions by ear, and the 



1 66 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

ear is often deceptive; it must then be admitted that 
they were occasionally in error, and we should not 
blindly trust their notation. However, they rarely made 
a very bad mistake; most often their spelling shows with 
absolute accuracy the position of the accent, the place and 
tone of the vowels, the value of the grammatical termina- 
tions ; the variants that a name sometimes presents have 
always their reasons. With the assistance of these 
elements, we come to know how a considerable part of 
the Egyptian language was harmonized in the time of 
the Ptolemies between the fourth and the first centuries 
B.c. That is something, but can we go back still further, 
or must we give up the possibility of reviving the sound 
and the dialects of earlier times ? For my part I do not 
think so, and I count on being able to justify my opinion 
one day or another. I do not mean that we shall ever be 
able to set up the scale of tones or delicate half-tones in 
its entirety which the people used in order to modulate 
their words or phrases ; but we shall succeed in knowing 
the place in which the vowels are interpolated in each 
term, the vocal coloration as a whole of each syllable, the 
syllable on which the chief accent is laid, perhaps, also, 
the word which received the principal accent in each 
phrase. An Egyptian inscription thus vocalized resembles 
one of the frescoes in the hypogeums of the ancient 
Empire, where the colour is not, as with us, the result of 
innumerable delicate and well-blended touches, but of 
vast flat tints spread roughly one by the side of the 
other. It would be a distant and rude approximation to 
nature, but sufficient to recall the original. The idea of 
the language thus furnished will harmonize with that of 
the people themselves and of their nature which is 
derived from the pictures. Those personages, with their 
ill-drawn profiles, angular gestures, scanty and stiff 
costume, act and live awkwardly, but they act and live. 
When we read the inscriptions placed above them, 



HIEROGLYPHIC INSCRIPTIONS 167 

which contain the conversations they held with each 
other, in the manner I have indicated, we should doubt- 
less receive the impression of a rude, awkward language, 
lacking nuances and suppleness, but we should at least 
feel something of its melody ; ancient Egypt would cease 
to be dumb, and we should begin to hear her voice. 

Would the result be worth the trouble it would require 
to attain it? It is not only curiosity that drives our 
scholars along this path, nor the vanity of having over- 
come difficulties deemed insurmountable. The first work 
of deciphering, that which consisted in fixing generally 
what there was in the Egyptian inscriptions, and in ad- 
justing the settings of grammar, history, religion, and 
literature, is now finished, three-quarters of a century after 
the discovery of Champollion. We are beginning to leave 
behind the " almost " with which we had to content our- 
selves on many points, and, dealing only with literature, 
we know the general sense of it sufficiently well to desire 
to go into it in detail, and to discover its technique. I 
have already analyzed the love songs that we read on 
various papyri, and I tried to translate portions of them. 1 
The idea is often pretty, and the expression happy. 
How can we imagine the rhythm, the cadence, the vibra- 
tion, all the melopeia of versification that supports and 
cradles the thought, if we are never to know how the 
Egyptians pronounced their language? Imagine what 
would become of the most melodious of Lamartine's 
" Méditations " if it should be discovered later under a 
system of writing which, leaving the consonantal skeleton 
of the words, suppressed the vowels ? The poetic 
theme and its developments would in the long run appear 
through the irregular groups of consonants, but the music 
would escape us so long as we could not guess at any 
method of reviving the vocalization. Egyptian poetry at 
the present time is in the position I suppose Lamartine's 
1 Cf. Chapter XX. 



1 68 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

" Méditations " to be. It is fixed by writing, but we do 
not know the art of sol-faing the notation and of read- 
ing musically what we decipher grammatically. It will 
not be necessary to revive all the shades of articulation. 
In order to enjoy the melody of the ' ' Chanson de Roland, ' ' 
we need not pronounce each sound exactly as a Parisian 
of the twelfth or thirteenth century would have done : it 
is sufficient to recite it with the modern enunciation, 
modified a little in certain points. The verse of Virgil 
or of Homer, recited in the French fashion, still pre- 
serves something of its sonority and measure : it is no 
longer the canticle of Roman poetry, but it is a recitative 
not lacking in beauty. When we shall nearly pronounce 
Egyptian as it was sounded of old, and when Egyptian 
poetry has found a melody, we shall be better able to 
appreciate the charm of rhythm and sound that went with 
its qualities of expression and thought. Egypt had 
several great literary ages, the works of which, copied 
from generation to generation, formed in the end a real 
collection of classics. When we vocalize or declaim 
these works with as much facility as we understand them, 
we shall perhaps come to recognize that the poetry of 
Egypt was not inferior to its plastic arts, and that the 
Pharaohs had poets as worthy of our admiration as their 
architects and sculptors. 



XXII 

CONCERNING A RECENTLY DISCOVERED FRAGMENT OF A 
COPTIC NOVEL 

Arab chroniclers have recorded in their works a com- 
plete history of the Pharaohs, which bears no resem- 
blance to that derived by us from the monuments. With 
very few exceptions the names differ, the narratives are 
near relations of the veracious tales of the Arabian 
Nights, magic, astrology, alchemy play the largest part, 
and kings and ministers appear in them as magicians 
or necromancers of superhuman cleverness. Temples, 
pyramids, syringes, hypogeums yield their hidden 
treasures, treasures of gold and silver, treasures of talis- 
mans and amulets, treasures of inscriptions, treasures of 
books to which distant ancestors had confided the 
mysteries of their wisdom, the incomparable wisdom of 
the Egyptians, in order to save it from the elements or 
from men, from the deluge of water that inundated the 
earth, from barbarous invasions which so often over- 
whelmed the valley. Towards the end reminiscences of 
the Bible are mingled with these incoherent imaginings, 
and the people of Genesis and Exodus, the Pharaoh of 
Abraham and of Joseph, Joseph himself, Potiphar's 
wife, then the chief Pharaoh, he who persecuted the 
Hebrews and perished so miserably in the Red Sea, are 
introduced into the circle of magicians. I have shown 
that this mass of extravagance was not a pure and simple 
invention of the Arabs, but was derived by them as it 

stands from Byzantine writers now lost; they merely 

169 



170 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

added anecdotes drawn directly from popular sources, 
and Mussulman legends grafted on to the Biblical tradi- 
tion. 1 Egypt, and other provinces under the Empire of 
the Caliphs, thought to do very well in almost literally 
translating the works offered them by the natives, as 
comprising an exact summary of their annals; the sort 
of fantastic epic that flourished among them is really the 
last deformity that Egypt herself inflicted on her national 
history before the invasion of Islam. 

She had at that time been long working to replace the 
authentic actors by imaginary heroes. Already under 
the Ramses a literature of fiction was blossoming forth, 
the protagonists of which were the most illustrious kings 
of former centuries, those who had built the pyramids, 
Cheops, Chephrên, Sahouri, or those who had driven 
out the Shepherds and conquered Asia, Tiouâqen and 
Thoutmôsis III. As Dynasties followed Dynasties it went 
on increasing, and when in the middle of the fifth century 
B.c. Herodotus of Halicarnassus described the wonders 
of the Nile for the edification of his fellow-countrymen, 
he did not compile an exact list or the actual doings 
of the sovereigns; he composed a romantic chronicle in 
which real names cover exploits invented in every detail. 
His second book is a collection of novels, some of which 
are so faithfully transcribed that the form of the Egyptian 
original is almost felt beneath the Hellenic dress; for 
example, the adventure of Rhampsinitus and the clever 
thief, the tragi-comedy of Pherôs and his faithless wife, 
the miracle of the priest Sethos, the works of Cheops 
and of Chephrên the impious, the virtues of the devout 
Mycerinus. The Saites themselves did not escape this 
invasion of fiction, and Bocchoris, Psammetichus I, 
Nechao, Apries, and Ahmasis in turn amused the popular 
fancy. The remembrance of the truth faded away as 
the upper classes and even the scribes lost the easy com- 
1 Journal des Savants ; pp. 69-86, 154-172. 1899. 



FRAGMENT OF A COPTIC NOVEL 171 

prehension of the inscriptions copied in the papyri or 
engraved on the monuments. The old stories, encum- 
bered with names and details that no one understood, 
gave place to fictions better suited to the taste of the 
day. The pyramids themselves escaped from Cheops 
and his successors to become the Granaries of Joseph the 
Patriarch, under Christian or Jewish influences. Each 
of the Egypts, as they traversed the ages, shortened cer- 
tain portions of the preceding chronicle, developed 
others, degraded the great men of a former age to absurd 
puppets, or promoted obscure men to the dignity of 
glorious heroes, corrected, erased, invented, borrowed 
from neighbouring nations, and combined the most 
heterogeneous plots with so much perseverance and in- 
dustry that in the end nothing was left of the ingenious 
narratives of the old story-tellers. Some testimony to 
the long unconscious labour is to be found in the hieratic 
and demotic papyri of Greek writers and Byzantine 
compilers; now the Copts have joined the ranks and 
begin to send us their contingent. 

Two years ago 1 Heinrich Schaefer discovered among 
some parchments recently acquired by the Berlin 
Museum six large detached sheets of a work in the 
Theban dialect; it seemed to him to be a somewhat 
different text from those of the ordinary manuscripts 
coming from that source. 2 They are the only fragments 
so far known of a novel the subject of which is the 
conquest of Egypt by the Persians. Quite properly, 
Cambyses is in the foreground, but a Cambyses to whom 
we are unaccustomed. Since he left the hands of 
Herodotus he has read the Bible, and having there made 
the acquaintance of Nebuchadnezzar, who, like himself, 
reigned at Babylon, imagined himself identical with 

1 This article appeared in 1900. 

2 H. Schaefer : " Bruchstiick eines koptischen Romans iiber die 
Eroberung ^Egyptens durch Kambyses," extract from the Comptes 
Rendus of the Berlin Academy, Vol. xxxviii, pp. 727-744. 



172 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

that vainglorious monarch. The East trembles before 
him; Pharaoh is his rival, yet not Ahmasis or Psam- 
metichus III, as he had so long thought, but Apries, 
the Hophra that the Hebrew books give as Nebuchad- 
nezzar's adversary. About to attack him, he calls upon 
the Syrian peoples to renounce their allegiance to Egypt, 
and the first of the fragments introduces him at that 
moment. His letter of challenge is couched in strong 
terms, but its only effect is to irritate the people to whom 
it is addressed; the messengers were on the point of 
perishing, when a certain Bothor, " a man of prudent 
counsel and skilful tongue, a hero by his strength and 
a champion in battle," thought of a way to save them. 
He persuaded the people ignominiously to expel them, 
giving them an insulting challenge for their master. 
" We write to you as to a timorous coward, to you, 
Cambyses, whose name in our language is Sanouo, 
which translated means Coward and Dastard. See, we 
have expelled your ambassadors, for we do not fear 
you ; but we possess great praise, and we glorify our 
Lord Pharaoh, he who rules in glory. We did not 
desire to kill your ambassadors, but at the time of the 
manifestation you will see what we shall do to you. 
. . . First, we shall massacre the soldiers in whom you 
trust; we shall kill your sons before your eyes; we shall 
cast low your tyrants; your gods ^ho accompany you, 
we shall burn by fire; and as for you, we shall not be 
content with roasting your flesh, but we shall tear it 
with our teeth like bears, like strong lions. Therefore, 
oh wretched man ! consider, reflect, know what you had 
best do, before punishment falls on you by the hands of 
Egypt. Who, indeed, among the kings, not only of 
the Assyrians but of all the earth, has ever withstood 
or been able to prevail against Egypt, that you, oh 
impious man ! should prevail against her? The kings of 
Gaul, or of the Hittites, or of the West, or of the icy 



FRAGMENT OF A COPTIC NOVEL 173 

North, or of the Medes, do you not say of all those : 
' They are valiant ' ? Why, then, have they not saved 
their countries from Egypt when they laboured hard not 
to become our slaves ? All those in whom you put your 
trust will never be masters; they will always be slaves." 
" When the messengers that Nebuchadnezzar-Cam- 
byses had sent returned, they told him all that had 
happened to them, and delivered the letter. Having 
read it he grew troubled, and summoned his councillors 
and spoke to them, saying : ' What shall we do ? You 
have heard how those who are in the countries of the 
rising sun stand against me, saying : " We will not sub- 
mit to you, because the power of Egypt is on our side." 
Do you desire us to begin by turning against them, and 
so to strike them with the edge of the sword that Egypt 
shall hear of it and become alarmed, and shall submit 
herself to me in peace and in terror ! ' Now there were 
seven councillors, and one of them, and his word carried 
weight, said to the king : ' May the king live for ever ! 
Listen to the counsel of your servant. Do not go against 
them, and do not be persuaded to attack them.' And 
he suggested a trick which would disconcert Egypt, and 
give her up to him disarmed. ' Send messengers 
throughout the length and breadth of Egypt, in the name 
of Pharaoh, their master, and in that of Apis, their god, 
inviting them with gracious words to a festival and a 
royal panegyric, and to come free from anxiety and 
with an easy heart that thinks not of war. When they 
are assembled their master will see that another rule 
has taken hold of them, he will be afraid, very much 
afraid, and he will deliver his country into your hands. 
If not, you will experience great trouble, as I have told 
you. For who can stand against these giants, who can 
fight with these bears? Who will undertake a combat 
with these lions without counsel, without knowledge, 
without skill, in order to become their lord ?' And he 



174 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

sang a superb hymn of praise to Egyptian prowess : 
' The Egyptians are all warriors, and their wives know 
how to cast stones with the sling, and they bear their 
children to train them for war. First, when they are 
little, they teach them to speak the truth, and at the same 
time instruct them how to endure pain without flinching. 
Then when they become stronger, they mount them on 
spirited horses, and when they are skilled in horseman- 
ship they are instructed in the use of arms; they take 
possession of bow and lance, and dread no war, for they 
are like the bee, against whom none can do anything 
except by stratagem. So that you can do nothing 
against Egypt except by cunning and wisdorn. If you 
succeed in assembling them together by your wisdom, 
then you may raise your lances against them ; if you do 
not succeed, you must not turn your face against them.' 
The advice pleased Cambyses. He gave commands to 
his messengers, and entrusted them with a letter 
addressed to all the towns and villages, to all the nobles, 
to all the fellaheen, to the rich and to the poor. He 
invited them to come in peace to the festival of Apis, 
that the god might reveal himself to them. ' Whoever 
does not come will bring upon himself the malediction 
and wrath of Apis ; but he who comes will receive bene- 
diction, he, and his whole house.' " The Egyptians were 
thoughtful on the receipt of this invitation. The more 
they reflected on the adventure, the less they liked it; 
they applied to their seers for a final decision on the 
matter, and this time they did not belie their old reputa- 
tion for sagacity. They divined that the author of the 
proclamation was not Pharaoh-Apries, but Nebuchad- 
nezzar-Cambyses, and the deceiver, deluded of his hope, 
was obliged to undertake the war he so greatly dreaded. 
What remains of the novel stops at the moment the 
war begins, and it is a vast pity. It would have been 
interesting to see how far it departed from the classical 



FRAGMENT OF A COPTIC NOVEL 175 

tradition. The author is an Egyptian. Only an 
Egyptian was capable of composing so well written an 
eulogy of the inhabitants of the valley as that which 
may be read in the oration of Cambyses's councillor. 
Was the first composition in Egyptian or Greek ? 
Schaefer has pointed out certain analogies with passages 
in John of Nikiou's chronicle relating to the Persian 
conquest, and it has been thought that that chronicle 
was translated from the Coptic into the Ethiopian. As 
far as can be judged from such brief fragments, I am 
inclined to believe that the original work was in Greek, 
and that it belonged to a relatively ancient epoch of 
Alexandrian literature. The way in which, under the 
influence of the Biblical tradition, the Hellenic tradition 
is disfigured, recalls the manner in which the Alexan- 
drine Jews conceived the relations of Egypt with the 
peoples of Asia mentioned in the Hebrew books; it is 
a composition similar to those of which, thanks to the 
pamphlet of Josephus against Apion, we possess a few 
extracts. It was translated into the Theban dialect, like 
the romance of Alexander of Macedon, and like many 
other works now lost of which we find mention among 
the Mussulmans. Its chief value for us is, that it is a 
fragment, so far unique, of those Books of the Copts 
repeatedly quoted by Arabian historians, the exist- 
ence of which has been too easily doubted, and from 
which the last of the fabulous histories of Egypt are 
certainly derived. 



XXIII 

AN ANCIENT EGYPTIAN PROVINCIAL TOWN 

For those who have made the classic pilgrimage of 
the Nile, the name of Denderah recalls their first actual 
sight of an Egyptian temple. A struggle with Cook's 
donkey-drivers, who dispute as to which of them is to 
take the tourist, twenty minutes' ride along a winding 
road between fields of beans, wheat or Indian millet, and 
then appears a triumphal door, almost level with the 
ground, and immense women's heads supporting a 
heavy cornice. The mass of ruins has so filled up the 
temple that, in spite of successive excavations, it is neces- 
sary to descend before setting foot on the ancient pave- 
ment. Once there we suddenly find ourselves in a world 
far removed from ours : we are in the midst of columns, 
bas-reliefs, paintings, light or dark halls, crypts lost in 
the thickness of the walls, staircases ascending to the 
terrace near the chapels of Osiris and near the roof 
of the hypostyle* Everything is so well preserved 
that, turning down a corridor, we almost expect to 
see one of the ancient worshippers forgotten of time. 
If the old priests who sleep beneath the hill not, far 
distant could come to life again at the beginning of 
some climacteric year, and by chance enter the sanc- 
tuary they had so devotedly served, they would have 
little to do to put it in due order, and to restore the 
ceremonial of worship. A ceiling and a casing here 
and there, a few slabs of sandstone on the floor, some 
colour on the walls, some leaves of doors to the rooms, 
and in a couple of months the temple would be 

176 



AN ANCIENT PROVINCIAL TOWN 177 

ready to receive the emblems of the goddess, the white 
cow of Hathor, or her golden timbrel. Indeed, if we 
may believe the inhabitants of the neighbouring village, 
the cow is still alive. They saw her in the night wander- 
ing over their fields, greedily deducting the tithe from 
their crops. She treats those who are content to admire 
her from a distance kindly, but she runs at and tramples 
on those who approach her. She lodges in the chapel 
known as the Chapel of the New Year, and watches over 
the sacred treasure of which neither the Christians nor 
the Mussulmans have been able to rob her. Hathor is 
neither dead nor in exile : in her own house she patiently 
waits for the ancient divinities once again to take the 
ascendant over the modern gods. 

Most travellers bring away a vivid impression, but 
leisure to deepen it is usually wanting, and they hur- 
riedly catch train or boat without troubling to find out 
if there are other ancient monuments in the neighbour- 
hood. They would not have to explore very far to dis- 
cover them, for, only a few hundred yards to the south, 
Flinders Pétrie explored in 1898 a necropolis where 
several princes of the city had been buried at a very 
remote epoch under the Pharaohs who built the 
Pyramids. 1 None of these personages had been famous 
among his contemporaries, and the opening of their 
tombs has not enriched history with any unpublished 
fact; but the interest of the inscriptions and bas-reliefs 
found there is all the same very great. So far the 
chances of excavation had taken us to the abodes of the 
Pharaohs themselves and of the persons of their court, 
into the most refined classes of society, and into the dis- 
tricts where civilization was most widely spread. Our 
knowledge of the industries, customs and arts came 
entirely from the cemeteries of Gizeh or Sakkarah, 

1 Flinders Pétrie : Dendereh, 1898 ; with chapters by F. LI. Griffith, 
Dr. Gladstone, and Olderfield Thomas. 1900. 



178 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

where everything showed us Egypt at its best. Gradu- 
ally, however, researches undertaken in the Said 
brought to light a provincial art and civilization differing 
in many points from the royal civilization at Kasr-es- 
Sayad, El-Kab or Elephantine. The local magnates 
may be seen at work under the peaceful sovereignty of 
the ruler who lived far in the north near Memphis, and 
we are struck with the awkwardness, sometimes even 
with the actual barbarism of their monuments. The 
lords of Elephantine, intrepid explorers, enriched by 
the caravans they sent to the regions situated to the 
west of the Nile or on the shores of the Red Sea, 1 only 
employed stone-cutters and daubers to decorate their 
funerary chapels. They drew on them scenes similar to 
those we find in the tombs of Sakkarah, and they could 
scarcely be different, for they had the same ideas about 
the life beyond the tomb as the Egyptians of the Delta. 
They represented them, however, with so unskilful a 
chisel, by figures so curiously deformed, that a date far 
back in the beginnings of history would be attributed to 
them, if the names of the masters they served did not 
compel us to place them at least two centuries later than 
the cheîkh el beled of the Gizeh Museum, the Crouching 
scribe of the Louvre, the Chephrên, and other master- 
pieces of archaic sculpture. The feudal art of Elephan- 
tine was many generations behind the royal art of 
Memphis. 

The first princes of Denderah were almost con- 
temporary with those of Elephantine, but as their monu- 
ments testify, fortune did not favour them the more for 
that. Their designers were less ignorant and their sculp- 
tors did not lack some skill in their profession, proof of 
which is to be found in the stelae or bas-reliefs discovered 
by Pétrie, photographs of which he has published. Pro- 
vincialism is shown in even the best of them by the naïve 
1 Cf. Chapter II. 



AN ANCIENT PROVINCIAL TOWN 179 

care with which the details of the hieroglyphics and the 
figures are brought out. There is a conscientious stiff- 
ness in the figures, a laborious application in the model- 
ling, a detail in the execution of the costumes and 
emblems, a stiffness in the cut of the letters, which prove 
what an effort it was for these people to produce pictures 
which the artists of Memphis turned out by dozens off- 
hand. The profile of the human face is surrounded by 
two stiff lines joined in an almost imperceptible angle 
near the point of the nose, the mouth swells into two 
lips equally thick from one side to the other, an almond 
eye protrudes between two pads which oddly simulate 
eyelashes. The slope of the shoulders is too round, the 
elbow is too pointed, the knee too knotted, the muscles 
of the leg too fantastic ; it is clear that an ambition to do 
well was not absent, but technique and feeling are not 
on a level with it. I speak of the pieces that are least 
bad, of those which belong to the great epoch of the 
Vlth Dynasty; others are frankly horrible, those which 
Pétrie places, with good reason, I think, in the Vllth 
and Vlllth Dynasties. And yet the nobles who were 
contented with such poor artists possessed wealth and 
power, and if they gave them these tasks it was not from 
ill-conceived economy; it was because no better artists 
were forthcoming. Provincial studios insisted on follow- 
ing the teaching they had received from their founders 
in times already distant from the early Dynasties, and 
worked on the old lines. When specimens of what was 
being done elsewhere came their way they had instinct 
enough to feel the superiority of the new school, but they 
had not intelligence or skill enough to borrow its 
methods and to apply them. Their works have a strong 
resemblance to the early ones of the Theban school; it 
seems that one tradition governed all that corner of the 
valley; they were waiting to improve, and to reach 
the perfection of the studios of Memphis, until events 



i8o NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

brought the southern cities to a higher degree of political 
activity and military power. 

The deeper we penetrate into the inmost recesses of 
Egypt the more the originality of the cities that com- 
posed the double kingdom becomes manifest. It is not 
so long since the greater number of students interested 
in Egypt complained of the uniformity and monotony 
that prevailed there : they found there kings identical one 
with the other in their hieratic majesty, a people of un- 
changing character, always the same from the beginning 
to the end of its existence, a political organization that 
never progressed, a religion that never changed, a fixed 
art and civilization into which no new element would be 
introduced for ages. And now, with the continuous pro- 
gress of research, that conception of immobility is being 
effaced and is disappearing. The Pharaohs overturn, 
poison, assassinate or persecute each other with ferocity 
even after death, and their mummies, despoiled of their 
wrappings, expose to view the wounds to which such a 
one succumbed. The people ridicule their masters, rise 
against them, sometimes go on strike, revealing them- 
selves as one of the most violent and turbulent nations 
of the ancient world. Gods, like men, underwent revolu- 
tions; their dogmas were modified, were displaced, dis- 
puted or banished, sometimes the stake was prepared for 
heretics. The constitution of the land was transformed 
from age to age, and with it social life and art. A period 
of despotic monarchy followed a time of feudal anarchy, 
and a great martial fief like Thebes ended in a pure 
theocracy, first in the hands of the priests, and then in 
those of the women. Art manifested itself in a number of 
schools in the provinces, prospered at one point, declined 
at another, was revived from century to century. The 
monuments discovered by Pétrie do not allow us to 
reconstruct the whole history of Denderah ; but they in- 
form us of what it was when the monarchy of Memphis 



AN ANCIENT PROVINCIAL TOWN 181 

fell, and gradually yielded the chief place to that of 
Thebes. Those who desire to study the monuments in 
detail and to compare them with those of neighbouring 
baronies that have reached us, would not find much 
trouble in tracing a complete picture of life in the Said 
from about the end of the fourth till about the beginning 
of the third millenary b.c. It would be an interesting 
undertaking, and would certainly surprise others than 
expert scholars. 



XXIV 

A NEW EGYPTIAN TALE 

In Egypt magic was always one of the chief elements 
of romantic literature ; about the Ptolemaic era it became 
almost the unique element of interest, for without it no 
tale was esteemed good. The Egyptians, forced to ac- 
knowledge their political inferiority to the Greeks and 
Romans, were proud of magic as the one superiority 
that their masters could not refuse them. They had no 
longer any generals or Pharaohs, but their sorcerers were 
still feared, and that somewhat consoled them for their 
fall. Their ancient magicians became objects of veri- 
table worship, and the numerous writings which told of 
their miracles were eagerly read. Two of them, a scribe, 
Amenôthês, son of Hapouî, who had been one of the 
favourites of Amenôthês III under the XVIIIth Dynasty, 
and Khâmoîs, son of Ramses II, who had acted as 
regent for his father for more than twenty years, had 
especially remained or again become dear to their 
memory. Two novels are already known to us, of which 
the latter is the hero. The oldest is in the Cairo Museum, 
and was discovered by Brugsch; the other is now in the 
British Museum. Griffith has just published them 
both in facsimile, in transcription, and in an English 
version. 1 Of the first, generally called The Tale of 
Satni, I shall say nothing; it has been so often trans- 
lated during the last thirty years that its plot is familiar 

1 Stories of the High Priests of Memphis: the Setho?i of Herodotus 
and the Demotic Tales of Khamuas^ by F. LI. Griffith, M.A. 1900. 

182 



A NEW EGYPTIAN TALE 183 

to students of Oriental literature. 1 The second was un- 
published before Mr. Griffith took it in hand, and lacunas 
frequently interrupt the text, but they do not prevent 
us from following the train of ideas. Its style is less 
polished than that of the other ; the language is awkward, 
and betrays the period of the decadence. Yet it pleases 
by the strangeness of the situations and the originality 
of the characters. 2 

The beginning represented the Princess Mehîtouoskhît, 
wife of Satni-Khâmoîs, in great grief because she had 
no children ; a dream revealed to her the means by which 
her desire could be fulfilled, and another dream revealed 
to her husband that the son she was to bear should be 
named Si-Osiri, and that he would do many marvels. 
In fact, the child, sent to school when he was four 
years old, soon excelled his masters in knowledge of 
magic. One day, when he attended a festival with his 
father, they heard the voice of wailing, and perceived 
the funeral procession of a rich man proceeding towards 
the necropolis of Memphis, in all the glory of an 
Egyptian burial. Another funeral came behind, that of 
a poor man, whose mummy was wrapped in a mat, and 
there were none walking after him. Satni, comparing 
in his mind the two destinies which ended in such dif- 
ferent ways, exclaimed: " How much better it shall be 
in Hades for great men, accompanied with glory and 
the voice of wailing, than for poor men, whom none 
accompanies!" That was the old Egyptian idea, but 
Si-Osiri, better instructed in the reality of things, 
sternly replied to his father : " May it be done unto you 
in Hades as it shall be done unto this poor man, and 
not as it shall be done unto this rich man !" And, in 
order to prove the foolishness of his belief, Si-Osiri led 

} It may be found in Maspero : Les Contes populaires de PAncie?me 
Egypte, 3rd edit., 1905. 

2 The complete translation will be found in Maspero's Contes 
populaires de PA?icienne Egypte, 3rd edit., 1905. 



1 84 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

his father to Hades by a path unknown to all, and made 
him traverse, one after the other, the six immense halls 
in which the souls were shut up. At the entrance of the 
fifth a man was lying on the ground, in such a position 
that the pivot of the door was fixed in his right eye. 
Osiris sat in the centre of the seventh hall, a diadem of 
feathers on his head, Anubis on his left, Thot on his 
right, the infernal council to the left and right of him. 
The dread balance in which truth weighs human 
actions was placed in front of him. Seated near the god 
was a person of noble appearance ; he was the poor man 
whose fate Satni had just deplored; his good deeds, 
thrown into the scales, had outweighed his evil deeds. 
But the evil deeds of the rich man had outweighed his 
good deeds, and so divine justice had reversed their 
conditions. The sumptuous belongings of the rich man 
had been given to the poor man, and the rich man was 
condemned to have his eye put out by the opening and 
shutting of the door. After visiting the abode of the 
Manes they returned to the light by a different road, and 
Satni marvelled more than ever at the superhuman 
powers of his son. 

The boy was twelve years old when a stranger arrived 
at the court, with much parade, with a message from 
the King of Ethiopia to the Pharaoh Ousimares. He 
carried a sealed letter on his body, and he challenged 
them to read it on him without breaking the seal or 
unfolding the sheet: " If there is no scribe or learned 
man capable of doing it I will take the humiliation of 
Egypt to the land of the negroes, my country." Pharaoh 
sent for Satni-Khâmoîs, the most celebrated of his 
magicians, and repeated to him the terms of the chal- 
lenge. Satni was in despair, but, ashamed to confess 
himself conquered before the battle, he asked for a 
week's delay, in order to make his preparations. He 
returned home stupefied, went to bed without taking the 



A NEW EGYPTIAN TALE 185 

trouble to undress, and the ministrations of his wife, 
Mehîtouôskhît, could not bring him out of his stupor. 
In the end, however, he confided the cause of his distress 
to Si-Osiri, who laughed in his face. Satni was 
offended, but his son replied : " I laugh to see you lying 
on the ground, your heart cast down, for such a piece of 
nonsense. Arise, my father Satni, I will read the letter 
from Ethiopia without opening it, and find what is 
written upon it without breaking the seal." When 
Satni heard these words he arose suddenly: " What 
proof will you give me that you are telling the truth, oh, 
my son Si-Osiri?" And Si-Osiri rejoined : " My father 
Satni, go to the cellars of your house, and every scroll 
that you take from the case I will tell you what scroll it 
is, from the place where I now am on the upper storey, 
without having seen it." He did as he had promised, and 
Satni, comforted, hastened to announce the good news 
to the Pharaoh. On the morning of the day appointed 
for the trial Ousimarês solemnly assembled the great 
men of the kingdom, summoned the messenger, and 
confronted him with Si-Osiri : " Woe, thou wicked 
Ethiopian!" exclaimed the child; "may Amon, your 
god, smite you ! You have come up to Egypt, the beau- 
tiful pool of Osiris, the throne of Harmakhis, the beau- 
tiful horizon of the good spirit, saying : ' I will take its 
humiliation to the land of the negroes !' But I am going 
to recite to you the words that Amon, your god, dictated 
to you, the words written in the letter; do not attempt 
to deny them before Pharaoh, your sovereign!" The 
messenger touched the ground with his forehead, swore 
not to prevaricate in anything, and then, in the presence 
of the king and of all the people, Si-Osiri began to recite 
what was in the sealed letter. 

The story which is grafted on to the first one is entirely 
new, and seems at first to have nothing in common with 
it. In the reign of Manakhphrês Siamon, an Ethiopian 



1 86 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

sorcerer of great power, Horus, son of the negress, had 
made a litter of wax with four runners. By means of 
a magic formula he had endowed his puppets with life, 
and had then enjoined them to go to Egypt, and bring 
the Pharaoh to Meroë; there they gave him 500 blows 
of the stick before the Viceroy of Ethiopia, and had then 
brought him back to his palace, running all the way, 
after only six hours' absence. The next morning Pha- 
raoh, much afflicted, complained to the persons of his 
court, exhibited his bruised back, and, when they had 
sufficiently wondered at it, he commanded them to reveal 
the cause. One of them, Horus, son of Panashi, a 
scribe renowned among his contemporaries, stated the 
cause without the slightest hesitation. " Sire," he said, 
" these are the sorceries of the Ethiopians; by the breath 
of thy nostrils I will arrange matters so that the wretches 
shall soon go to the chamber of torture and execution." 
"Very well," replied Siamon, "but make haste, and 
take care that I do not spend another night in the land 
of the negroes." Horus, son of Panashi, then armed 
his master with a cuirass of amulets, entered the temple 
of Hermopolis, and implored Thot to teach him how to 
save Pharaoh from the sorceries. Thot appeared to 
him in a dream, and indicated the place in which he 
had hidden the most efficacious of his books of magic. 
The litter and its runners, however, returned during the 
king's sleep, but, repulsed by the power of the amulets, 
they retraced their steps empty-handed to him who had 
breathed life into them. Horus, son of Panashi, en- 
couraged by this result, determined to use Thot's book, 
and, without delay, to play off on his adversaries the 
same trick. He, too, modelled a litter and runners in 
wax, sent them to the Viceroy of Ethiopia, and, when 
they had delivered him into his power, he thrashed him 
soundly, giving him 500 blows of the stick, the same 
number as Siamon had received. Horus, son of the 



A NEW EGYPTIAN TALE 187 

negress, guessed from this vigorous reply that his col- 
league had entered into the campaign, but he felt too 
weak to triumph over such a strong adversary. He had 
recourse to his mother, the negress, who was more skilful 
than he was, and he told her of his intention to go to 
Egypt in disguise, and try and surprise Horus, son of 
Panashi. He was unmasked immediately on his arrival, 
and was about to succumb when his mother came to his 
rescue in an air-ship ; she was conquered in her turn, but 
Horus, son of Panashi, was too generous, and spared 
both their lives on condition that they would exile them- 
selves from Egypt for 1,500 years. So far, Si-Osiri 
had confined himself to take the messenger for witness 
as to the veracity of his words. Suddenly he left off 
reading, and, addressing Ousimares, said : " He who is 
before you is Horus, son of the negress, the man whose 
story I have read to you, and who returns to Egypt after 
the fifteen centuries have passed, to try and humiliate you. 
I am Horus, son of Panashi. Foreseeing that at this 
time there would be no scribe in Egypt capable of resist- 
ing him, I begged Osiris to let me come forth to the 
world again ; I have done so as the supposed son of 
Satni-Khâmoîs." By a last effort of magic he lighted 
a brazier in the centre of the courtyard, and burned 
Horus, son of the negress, in it, after which he 
swooned, and was seen no more. 

Such is the novel. If we desire to analyze it, it may 
be easily divided into two distinct tales. The second, 
which treats of the struggle of the two sorcerers, contains 
the ordinary incidents of such combats in the Arabian 
Nights: the abduction of the hero or heroine, and their 
return to the place they were taken from in a few hours, 
the statuettes animated by magic arts, the defeat of 
Moghrebin, and the intervention of his mother, the de- 
struction of the miscreant by fire, after which the good 
genius disappears, or dies, exhausted by his victory. 



1 88 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

The first tale is a sort of new version of the parable of 
Lazarus and of the wicked rich man, serving as a setting 
to a sketch of heathen revelation. The episode of a 
descent into Hades of a living person was old among 
the Egyptians, and a story, too briefly told by Herodotus, 
had already applied it to the fabulous Rhampsinitus. 1 
Griffith has confined himself to translating his manu- 
script, without trying to distinguish the ideas that 
form its woof. They are mostly of native growth, but 
Grseco-Roman Egypt had been subjected to so many 
foreign influences that the Egyptian appearance may, in 
places, hide some foundation of foreign ideas. We may 
perhaps find some day a residue of Hellenic or Jewish 
ideas in the second tale of Satni-Khâmoîs. 
1 Herodotus ', II, cxxii. 





Amenothf.s Son of Paapis, a Statue from Karnak in the Cairo Museum. 



e page 18S. 



XXV 

HOW AN EGYPTIAN STATESMAN BECAME A GOD 

About the middle of the fifteenth century b.c., in the 
reign of Thoutmôsis III, a certain scribe of lowly birth, 
who had settled in the city of Athribis in the Delta, 
had a son named Amenôthês. We do not know by what 
strokes of fortune the child emerged from the obscure 
rank to which he belonged by birth, and gradually rose 
to the highest places in the state; he only appears on 
the monuments after he had become old, and was in 
possession of Amenôthês Ill's entire confidence. He 
held the administration of justice and of the army in his 
hands, and only the king and the members of the royal 
family were greater than he. He reorganized the 
finances, which had suffered from the neglect of the 
ministers who preceded him. He restored order in 
military affairs, increased the fleet, built temples, pre- 
sided over the works of his master, and it was he, per- 
haps, who erected the celebrated Colossi of Memnon at 
Thebes. He advanced so high in favour that his master 
authorized him to consecrate statues to himself in the 
sanctuary of Amon, lord of Karnak. We possess four 
of these, each representing him in different attitudes. 
One that has just been brought to light by Legrain, 
ranks as a masterpiece of Theban sculpture. It repre- 
sents him with his face worn by age, and the inscription 
informs us of the good opinion he had of himself. " I 
came to thee," he said to Amon, " to beseech thee in thy 
temple, for thou art lord of what there is under heaven, 

189 



i go NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

thou art the god of human beings : what there is in 
heaven invokes thy magnificence, and thou nearest that 
appeal, thou art the Sun-god incomparable. Thou 
grantest to me to be among the elect who act in accord- 
ance with the truth, and I am a just man, I commit no 
sin. ... I do not take him who lives by his toil to 
labour in the public works; when a man is summoned 
before me, I listen to what he has to say, I do not yield, 
I lend myself to no falsehood which would lead to 
despoiling another of his property. It is my virtue that 
justifies the honours bestowed on me, and which is clear 
to the sight of all ; has any one ever been seen who 
is supplicated as I am on account of the vastness of 
the property that has come to me, which testifies that 
I am just in my old age ? I have attained the age of 
eighty in the favour of the king, and I shall live to 
be a hundred and ten !" 

It is not known if he lived so long, and it is scarcely 
probable, but posterity reserved privileges for him 
superior even to those bestowed on him by his contem- 
poraries. The statues of him seen in many places in 
the temple, the panegyrical inscriptions on most of them, 
accounts of him transmitted orally, all circumstances, 
indeed, contributed to perpetuate his memory, not only 
with the priests or the educated classes, but also with 
the common people of Thebes. At that time magic 
was one of the most respected of the sciences, and no 
one was considered perfect if he did not combine the 
reputation of a skilled sorcerer with his abilities as 
statesman or administrator. One of the sons of Ramses 
II, who filled the place of regent with distinction for more 
than twenty years in the last half of his father's reign, 
owed the fact that he was not forgotten almost im- 
mediately after his death to his reputation as a sorcerer. 
The magician Khâmoîs saved the memory of the regent 
Khâmoîs, and kept it fresh until the first century of the 



AN EGYPTIAN STATESMAN 191 

Roman Empire. 1 Amenôthês similarly escaped oblivion, 
thanks to the fame he acquired through his talent as a 
magician. Did he actually write books of magic? A 
long magic writing is found in certain papyri, and the 
copyists attribute its authorship to him. As a matter 
of fact it is pure nonsense to us, but the Egyptians 
thought it very fine and felt profound admiration for 
the presumed author. It was not given to everybody 
to find words which compelled gods to submit to the 
human will, and it was said that the formulas of Amen- 
ôthês had never failed in their effect; the name of 
Amenôthês was, therefore, inscribed in the registers of 
the temples by the side of those of Imouthes, of Didou- 
fhor and of the magicians whom Hermes, the thrice 
great, had most generally favoured with his inspirations. 
He became the hero of a large number of legends, which 
were passed from mouth to mouth, the greater number 
of which are lost. One alone remains in two versions 
to show us what the others were like. 

Manetho, the national historian, inserted it in his 
chronicles. He related that the Pharaoh Amenôphis, 
desiring to see the gods face to face, as his predecessor 
Hôros had done, applied to the most celebrated seer of 
his day, Amenôphis or Amenôthês, son of Paapis. He 
revealed to him that he would be happy and would make 
Egypt happy if he delivered the land from the impure 
strangers encamped there. Pharaoh assembled them to 
the number of 80,000, first in the stone-pits of Tourah, 
and then in the ruins of Avaris, which had been deserted 
since the expulsion of the Shepherds. He thus drew 
down unprecedented misfortunes on himself and his 
kingdom. The seer had, in fact, dissimulated a portion 
of the divine will; the Impure would summon the exiled 
Shepherds to their aid, and together they would occupy 
Egypt for thirteen years, at the end of which period 
1 Cf. Chapter XXIV. 



i 9 2 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

they would be conquered. Feeling that the accomplish- 
ment of fate was imminent, he informed the sovereign 
in writing, and killed himself. Things happened as he 
had predicted. The Impure, allied with the Shepherds, 
took possession of the whole of Egypt, and Pharaoh, 
having taken refuge in Ethiopia, did not reconquer his 
kingdom until thirteen years had passed. Manetho 
confused this Egyptian tale with the Hebraic traditions, 
and attached the adventures of Amenôphis, son of 
Paapis, to the narrative of the Exodus. A Greek 
papyrus of the Ptolemaic epoch has preserved the pro- 
phecy in a form nearer the Egyptian original. We read 
there that Amenôphis was a potter renowned for his 
wisdom. One day a spirit from on high entered into 
him and he uttered a long oration in which he predicted 
all sorts of evils to Egypt, followed by a time of pros- 
perity, the like of which had never been seen since the 
time of Osiris and of Isis. The king, Amenôphis, to 
whom this was told, wished to hear it from the mouth of 
the seer himself, who repeated the words, and then fell 
down dead. It is the same plot as Manetho used but 
freer, and unconnected with the history of the Hebrews. 

The statues set up in the temples in honour of kings 
or individuals, according to Egyptian belief, were not 
inanimate images solely commissioned to eternize the 
features of this or that person. They were imperishable 
bodies to which a soul, or at least a double, was attached. 
When they were put into their place, the priest held a 
service over them, by virtue of which a particle of the 
life of the donor was infused into them, and never more 
abandoned them. They were metamorphosed into pro- 
phetic idols to whom recourse was had to learn the 
future, and they were worshipped in a fashion that 
brought them very near to the divine idols. Those 
whose portraits they represented, if they did not become 
immortals of high rank, at least left humanity to join 



AN EGYPTIAN STATESMAN 193 

the company of the gods. Amenôthês, son of Paapis, 
belonged in his lifetime to the class above the human, 
and in the inscription I have translated he boasts of it 
as a privilege accorded to none but himself. As the 
centuries progressed, the honours which had been heaped 
on him, far from falling into desuetude, as is often the 
case with heroes of that sort, increased out of all pro- 
portion. Did he really found the Chapel of Hathor, now 
called Deir el Medineh ? It was so believed in the 
Thebes of the Ptolemies, and he was associated with the 
sacrifices made there to the goddess in concert with other 
divinities. We do not know why he was associated at 
the same epoch with the Theban Phtah ; but he was 
installed in his temple and there foretold the future. 
From this time, then, he was fully a god, and not one of 
the least among those revered at Thebes. Like Amon, 
like Khonsou, like Maout, he had two sanctuaries at his 
disposal, one at Karnak in the town of the living where 
his double and his living statues resided, the other in 
the necropolis where his dead statue received the honours 
due to the souls of the dead. It was to Karnak that 
people went to consult his oracle. The priests, after 
interrogating his image, replied for him, and the wonder- 
ing believers did not omit to engrave some votive picture 
or inscription in sign of gratitude on one of the non- 
decorated outer walls. Like Amon, Amenôthês, son 
of Paapis, had his devotees in the ruined Thebes of 
the last Ptolemies, and of the earliest Roman Emperors. 
It is not a usual circumstance for a simple mortal, even 
though he be a king's minister, to become a god. In 
the whole of Egyptian antiquity we find only two or three 
to whom it happened. The example of Amenôthês, 
however, is sufficient to prove that the Egyptians did 
not believe it impossible for man to manufacture gods. 
The case of the Pharaohs does not apply, for in their 
eyes the Pharaohs were not actual men ; they were rather 
13 



194 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

gods incarnated in human bodies, the direct descendants 
of Horus, Râ, or Amon ; and when they died, by a 
law of nature they returned to their primitive condition. 
For an Amenôthês, son of Paapis, or for any other 
individual, not of the royal blood, things were very 
different. In that case the subject to be made divine 
was an actual man, in the birth of whom no divinity 
had had even the smallest part. 

Material for a divine soul had to be extracted from a 
common soul, and the process is not easy to explain. 
It was accomplished, however, and seemed to be con- 
nected in a sufficiently direct manner with the ideas held 
about the man and his after life on the one hand, and 
those held about the gods and their nature on the other. 
Man has no right to immortality, and the part of him 
that survives, called soul or double, is only perpetuated 
on condition of being continually nourished and 
refreshed. Supported by the worship of posterity, it 
can postpone infinitely the moment of annihilation. The 
gods themselves, so to speak, are only sublimated men : 
their substance is finer, their virtues stronger, their 
sensations keener, and their existence more prolonged, 
but they are subject to human infirmities, to disease, to 
old age and to death. Amon was dead, Râ was dead, 
Phtah was dead, Osiris was dead; but they had been 
brought back to conscious life by the magical conjura- 
tions of their children and their wives, and provided that 
the usual liturgies were observed with regard to them, 
there was no reason why they should not persist from 
century to century. The difference, then, between 
humanity and divinity was not a difference in essence 
but of degree in essence, and there was nothing to pre- 
vent the elements of humanity being sufficiently 
strengthened to become identical with those of divinity. 

It was known that men by means of formulas and 
magic could command gods, and impose on them the 



AN EGYPTIAN STATESMAN 195 

domination of their creatures. 1 Let us imagine the 
double of one of those magicians transported into Hades, 
and there preserving his skill. As he had done on earth, 
he would compel the gods to obey him blindly, and, if 
he so pleased, would declare his will to mortals with 
an authority that could not be distinguished from that 
of the gods. If posterity continued such abundant 
offerings in his honour that his existence was as assured 
as that of the gods, there would be no distinction between 
him and them except that of birth, and in very truth 
mortals would have fabricated a new immortal. That 
is what happened in the case of Amenôthês, son of 
Paapis. His magic gave him power over the gods, and 
allowed him to realize by their intervention all the 
miracles they worked themselves. The Pharaoh, 
Amenôthês III, in erecting numerous statues to him in 
the temple of Karnak, and in instituting worship of him, 
guaranteed him the resources necessary to prevent his 
annihilation after death. It was therefore given to him 
to practise his prophetic and beneficent virtues long after 
he had vanished from the earth. The votive offerings 
lavished on him by the people increased his wealth, and 
at the same time increased his powers and his chances 
of immortality. He was prepared to become god by his 
skill in magic, and by the consecration of his own 
images ; the piety of his devotees progressively com- 
pleted the metamorphosis, and ended by making him 
wholly a god. 

1 Cf. Chapter XIV. 



XXVI 

EGYPTIAN FORMULAS FOR THE PROTECTION OF CHILDREN 

In the Egyptian creed the beings we perceive around 
us are only the smallest part of the inhabitants of the 
universe. The earth, the waters, the mountains, the 
woods, the air, are full of forces and persons, who, 
although usually unfelt and unseen, are not less active 
among us. The living mingle with them without know- 
ing it, knock up against them, repel them, summon them, 
sometimes to receive benefits from them, sometimes to 
undergo their evil influence. Many of them are semi- 
divinities, or genii, who have never lived in human form ; 
others are disembodied souls, wandering doubles, or dis- 
contented shades, whose condition beyond the tomb has 
not preserved any of the advantages they enjoyed in their 
earthly existence, and whose poverty enrages them 
against the present generations. They were angry that 
those who now occupied their places should abandon 
them, as they themselves had abandoned those who pre- 
ceded them, and they sought to revenge themselves for 
their negligence by attacking them without their know- 
ledge. They prowled about the towns and the country 
day and night, patiently seeking a victim, and, directly 
they found him, took possession of him by one of the 
means at their disposal. They beat him with their in- 
visible hands, they made incisions in the chest, they 
sucked his blood during his sleep, they slipped into him 
through the ears, nose, or mouth. The greater part of 
the physical ills commonly called diseases are their 

work; they must be forced to desist by exorcism, or by 

196 



PROTECTION OF CHILDREN 197 

charms, before administering the remedies that annul the 
effects of their presence, or, better still, their assaults 
must be prevented by the possession of amulets or form- 
ulas which defy their fury. All human beings whose 
natural weakness more particularly exposes them to their 
malice, women with child, women after delivery, new- 
born infants, needed to be specially protected, and it was 
to provide such with weapons that an unknown scribe 
wrote down the two collections of incantations of which 
Erman has just published a translation. 1 

The text has one advantage over the greater number 
of those we so far possess, in that it brings on the scene 
trie beings against whom the incantations are directed. 
It shows us the ghosts in action, and we see them in 
imagination as the Egyptian mothers or nurses described 
them to children. "Avaunt," said one of them to the 
spectre, " ye dead man, who comes in the darkness, who 
enters stealthily, with nose behind, face obverse, avaunt, 
frustrated of what ye have come for ! Avaunt, ye dead 
woman, who comes in darkness, who enters stealthily, 
nose behind, face obverse, avaunt, frustrated of what 
ye have come for ! If ye are come to kiss this child, 
I shall not allow you to kiss it ! If ye are come to 
still its crying, I shall not allow you to still it ! If 
ye are come to injure it, I shall not allow you to injure 
it ! If ye are come to take it away, I shall not allow 
you to take it from me ! I have made for it a charm 
against you with the lettuce that pricks, with the garlic 
which is harmful, with honey liked by the living, but 
hated by the dead, with the bones of the mormyrus, with 
a bundle of tow, with the backbone of a latus !" Nurses 
and mothers must often have threatened their refractory 
children with this horrible phantom, and we must never 
have had a nurse, or never have heard similar tales 

1 A. Erman, Zauberspriiche fur Mutter tmd Ki7id^ aus dem Papyros 
3027 des Berliner Museums. Berlin. 1901. 



1 98 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

when we were little, not to imagine the terror of the 
unfortunate Egyptian babies who, waking up in the 
middle of the night, thought they felt some mysterious 
presence moving in the darkness. It was it; it came, 
gliding noiselessly like a thief, turning aside its face, 
rendered fleshless by the process of mummification, with 
the snub nose flattened by the pressure of the wrappings, 
so as not to betray itself just at first. It stretched its 
cunning head out to kiss — the Egyptian text says to 
smell — the unhappy infant, and to suck away its life, 
or, if it cried, to rock it to the sleep that knows no 
waking. Maybe, it would take hold of the child with its 
dry hands, and bruise it, or carry it off to be devoured 
at leisure in a tomb. The child would die from fright 
in its bed if it had not confidence in the talisman 
he wore at his neck, in which some good woman had 
placed substances, plants, honey, fish-bones, abhorred 
by evil spirits. We act in the same way in the country 
districts of France, and if our ghosts possess wicked 
instincts similar to those of the defunct Egyptians, they 
are equally subject to the same natural antipathies of 
which our sorcerers, like those of ancient times, make 
use to baffle their wicked purposes. 

It must be confessed, however, that, to the shame of 
the Egyptian spectres, they did not confine themselves 
to working their evil deeds during the night. Spectres of 
modern times usually vanish or lose their power at cock- 
crow, but the Egyptian species continued their evil prac- 
tices in the full light of day. Egyptian theology wished 
it to be so, for it assigned to the soul, as the height of 
felicity, the faculty of leaving at will during the day the 
darkness of the tomb ; and the wicked soul enjoyed the 
same privileges as the good and beneficent soul. There 
was thus no truce in the war waged by the spectres 
against mankind, and it was as necessary to be on the 
defensive at midday as at midnight. Every morning 



PROTECTION OF CHILDREN 199 

anci every evening a formula was repeated over the child 
which rendered it immune for the twelve hours of light 
and the twelve hours of darkness. In the former it was 
the sun, the watchful eye of the world, who was re- 
quested to preside over the defence. " Thou arisest, O 
god Shou ; thou arisest, O god Râ ! If thou seest the 
dead man coming against such a one, born of such a one, 
or the dead woman, the woman harmful wherever she 
is found, meditating some plot, do not permit her to 
take the child in her arms." " My master Râ has 
saved me," the mother then said; " I will not give you, 
my child, I will not give you to the thief from hell ; but 
the hand drawn on the gem of this ring is a charm for 
you, and I shall keep you !" In order that the exorcisms 
should work, it was uttered over an amulet, afterwards 
fastened round the child's neck. In this case it was the 
gem of a ring on which a man's hand was engraved; it 
was threaded on a cord and tied with one knot every 
morning and one knot every evening, until there were 
seven knots. In all the museums are scarabs, or 
disks of hard stone on which an open hand may be 
seen, the fingers stretched out and held close against 
each other, but we did not know the meaning of the 
emblem; we know now that it protected little children 
against ghosts of dead men and women who walk 
at midday. The formula repeated in the evening in 
tying the knot differed from the other only in a few 
words; instead of addressing the rising sun, the sun 
which sets in the country of Life was invoked. 1 Like all 
the customary daily prayers, it ended by becoming so 
familiar to the Egyptians that they came to repeat it 
without attaching precise meaning to each word. Pro- 
vided that the sound remained the same, they troubled 

1 "The Country of Life" was an euphemism for the West, the 
region to which the dead repaired when they left their earthly 
existence. 



200 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

little to repeat the exact terms. Thus the text is very 
corrupt, and Erman would not have been able wholly 
to restore it had it not been transcribed four times follow- 
ing in his manuscript. How many of our popular 
formulas have become mere incomprehensible jargon by 
the same process of deformation ! 

Some children were in greater danger than others, and 
required a more careful protection if they were to be put 
out of reach of harm. It is known what a horror the 
population of many nomes had of men or animals of a 
red colour. They cut their throats, or burned them, in 
order to turn aside the wrath of the Osirian gods. Even 
where the hatred was less violent they were considered 
different from other individuals of the race; was not 
Set-Typhon, the murderer of Osiris, red-haired ! If, 
then, a child was born with red hair, or if he had a red- 
haired mother, special precaution was taken to prevent 
Typhon seizing him as his property, or the spectres, 
Typhon 's subjects, laying hand on his person. Then the 
11 formula of the red-haired woman who had given birth 
to a form " had to be repeated. The scribe did not dare 
to say " who had given birth to a child," for a Typho- 
nian being might issue from a Typhonian mother, and 
the new-born infant be only a form of the cursed one. 
They also tried to procure him the support of the gods 
hostile to those whose mark he bore, Isis and Nephthys, 
the two sisters of Osiris. " Greeting to you, Isis has 
twisted, Nephthys has smoothed the sacred thread with 
the seven knots with which I protect thee, O healthy child 
of such a one, so that you may be healthy and prosper- 
ous, so that you may be in favour with all the gods and 
all the goddesses, so that every foe, male or female, who 
attacks you, may be defeated, so that the mouth of any 
one who makes incantations against you may be closed, 
as the lips of the seventy-seven asses which are at the 
lake of Dasdes were sealed; I know them, I know their 



PROTECTION OF CHILDREN 201 

names, but he who does not know them, and who wishes 
to injure this child, may he suffer by them, and that 
swiftly." The amulet itself had to be made of seven 
round porphyry beads, of seven gold beads, of seven 
sprigs of flax twisted by two sisters who are mothers, of 
whom one rolled and the other smoothed. A charm of 
seven knots must be made of the whole, over which the 
prayer was repeated four times, and then it was tied 
round the child's neck. The two Osirian goddesses were 
summoned to the help of the Typhonian baby, and they 
were represented at the time of the manufacture of the 
amulet by two sisters, both mothers. They prepared for 
the little mortal the same charm that had been invented 
for the young Horus when he was pursued by Typhon, 
and henceforth neither phantoms nor enchanters would 
have any power over him. Not only were their lips 
sealed like those of the seventy-seven asses, agents of the 
evil spirit that the Sun conquered every day when he 
traversed the lake of Dasdes where they dwelt; but if 
they attempted in spite of all to injure the child, the asses 
would turn against them and tear them to pieces. If 
after that any accident happened to the child, magic 
must be despaired of. 

All the passages in the collection are not as clear as 
those of which I have just given the text and a brief 
commentary. Sometimes lacunae occur, which we can* 
not fill up in a satisfactory fashion ; sometimes the ideas 
and allusions are very obscure and puzzling. In many 
cases the uncertainty which Erman has not been able to 
avoid is due to the fact that for the explaining of the 
text he has depended solely on the text itself ; he has not 
sought the meaning in traditions or in foreign supersti- 
tions. I think that in such matters comparison with 
what has been elsewhere observed is the surest method of 
arriving at a definitive explanation. All ancient peoples 
conceived the relations between man and the invisible 



202 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

world in almost the same way, and the conclusions they 
deduced from their concepts have led to the same 
practices. It is scarcely necessary to recall with what 
tenacity they have been preserved down to our time. 
Examples may still be found in many parts of France or 
Germany, the equivalents of which are described in the 
old books that come to us from Egypt or Chaldasa. 
When the papyri contain formulas and rites that seem 
incomprehensible, it is always worth while to see if the 
study of modern superstitions would not help us out of 
the difficulty ; very often, here as elsewhere, the present 
would complete the past, and allow us to interpret the 
latter with certainty. 






XXVII 

CONCERNING A FRAGMENT OF OLD EGYPTIAN ANNALS 

When for the first time we go over the interminable 
list of semi-barbarous names with which the canon of 
the Egyptian kings commences, the Menés, Athôtis, 
Miebaïs, Semempses, we ask ourselves what documents 
the scribes who drew it up possessed, and if they did 
not invent the beginnings of their national history. The 
length of the reigns attributed to the early Pharaohs, and 
the nature of the events supposed to have happened in 
their time, confirm that impression. Menés was torn to 
pieces by a hippopotamus, Athôtis built the palace of 
Memphis and wrote works on anatomy. There was a 
famine under Ouenephes, a plague under Semempses, 
and the Nile flowed with honey for eleven days under 
Neferkeres, and Sesôchris was of remarkable stature, 
five cubits in height and three hands in breadth. There 
is nothing there calculated to inspire confidence, and 
we naturally say that the early Egyptian Dynasties have 
decidedly little connection with authentic history. 

The discoveries of these last years prove that we are 
wrong to judge so. Not only did the old Pharaohs exist, 
but they have left monuments, and it is in accordance 
with the monuments that the most ancient annalists com- 
piled the lists that the scribes of the epoch of the Ramses 
and of the Greek epoch, Manetho like the rest, have 
transmitted to us in so incomplete a fashion. According 
to a custom that then prevailed in the East, in order to 
distinguish the years of a sovereign one from the other, 
they were marked by the mention of one of the principal 
events which occurred in them. The nations on the 

203 



204 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

banks of the Euphrates dated official acts from the year 
in which Boursin, the king, destroyed the town of Our- 
billoum, or that in which Sinmouballît cleaned out and 
enlarged the royal canal. Similarly we find in Egypt, 
under the Pharaoh Boêthos, a year of fighting and con- 
quering the peoples of the North f and under Semempses 
a year of following the procession of Horus and his boat. 
Such a method is not entirely unknown in our day. In 
the lives of the peasants a hailstorm that damaged the 
crops, a flood, the death of a horse or a cow, the fall of 
a tree, become landmarks of which they make a sufficient 
chronology for their family. Confusion would, however, 
soon enter the memories of each generation, becoming 
inextricable as time went on, if they had not carefully 
classified the appellations given to the years during the 
reigns. Both the Egyptian and Chaldaean scribes were 
accustomed to keep registers in which they were collected, 
and inscribed them in the same order as they occurred. 
The registers, deposited in the libraries of temples and 
palaces, in time constituted real annals in which with a 
little attention we could learn not only the names of the 
Pharaohs and their successors, but the number of years 
and even of the months and days they had been on the 
throne, with a summary indication of a portion of the 
events that had happened in their time. They were 
copied on papyrus, stone or brick, and notwithstanding 
errors and lacunae in the oldest parts, we must admit that 
they offer valuable aid to students endeavouring to recon- 
struct the far-off past of Egypt or Chaldsea. 

Only one of those which existed in Egypt has come 
down to us, and it is in a wretched state of preservation. 
It is a fragment of black granite, which strayed to Sicily 
no one knows how or at what period, and is now in the 
Palermo Museum. Its inscriptions were published in 
1896 by Pellegrini, the Italian Egyptologist, and at once 
roused general curiosity. The nature of the document 




One of the Faces of the Palermo Stone, a Fragment of Egyptian Annals 



bage 204. 



OLD EGYPTIAN ANNALS 205 

it bore was not defined, however, until 1901 ; 1 quite 
recently Schaefer has made a complete translation, which 
makes it accessible not only to expert Egyptologists, 
but to historians of antiquity. 2 The beginning and the 
end have disappeared, and no existing line is complete. 
There are at first a series of very short groups, ranged 
one after another in juxtaposed rectangles. They are not 
the birth names of the Pharaohs, but the names given 
them on enthronement, their double names, like those 
found some years ago at Sakkarah and near Abydos, a 
canon of the sovereigns special perhaps to Lower Egypt. 3 
It seems that only the forenames of those survived, and 
that nothing was known of them except that they had 
lived. They are followed by other personages, about 
whom there are definite facts, mention of years, indica- 
tion of their mother, the height attained by the Nile at 
each of its inundations. Even if the monument were less 
damaged should we actually have the sum total of the 
years of their reigns? It is very doubtful, and if only 
fortune favours us in our excavations, we shall bring to 
light inscriptions which will oblige us to enlarge the 
list. The same barrenness is to be found in the lines in 
which the princes of the Illrd Dynasty are enumerated, 
but when we reach the IVth the information becomes 
fuller. Unfortunately it is half destroyed, and we only 
have a small portion of what concerned the first and last 
prince of the family : the builders of the three great 
pyramids, Cheops, Chephrên, and Mycerinus are lost 
in the lacunae. The Pharaohs who form the first half of 

1 Maspero, in the Revue Critique, 1901, Vol. li, p. 384. 

2 H. Schaefer : " Ein Bruchstiick altaegyptischer Annalen," taken 
from the Me??zoirs oj c the Berlin Academy of Sciences, 1902. 

3 The determinatives that accompany these names represent the 
king wearing the crown of Lower Egypt. I have said elsewhere 
that that was not a sufficient reason. The names inscribed on the 
Tables of Abydos are all determined by the image of the king wearing 
the crown of Upper Egypt; no one has concluded that they were 
kings of Upper Egypt only, and, in fact, they reigned over both Egypts 
united together. 



206 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

the Vth Dynasty have met with better fortune; if the 
whole tale of their years is not preserved, the information 
about those of which the text is intact is so full that their 
deeds live again before our eyes. 

And what are the incidents which the chronicler has 
chosen to register? First he records the chief episodes 
in the sovereign's life. His first year, that of his acces- 
sion, derived its name from the ceremonies usual on such 
an occasion, and was called the year of his rising to be 
king of Upper and Lower Egypt. The monarch bound 
together the two lotus stems which represent the two 
halves of the kingdom, and four times in succession he 
ran round the temple which sheltered the god from 
whom he was deemed to hold his crown. Other years 
derive their titles from festivals that he had to celebrate 
periodically, the procession in which the boat of Horus, 
the Shomsou Horou, represented the course of the bull 
Apis, the anniversary of the massacre of the tribes of the 
Libyan desert, the Anou, at the time of the Osirian wars. 
Some years commemorate the foundation of a temple 
or of a funerary chapel, or of some religious ceremony, 
the institution of the sacrifice, and the donation of a 
fief to one of the gods. Elsewhere maritime expeditions 
or wars are mentioned. We learn thus that in the last 
years of his life Sahourî imported large quantities of 
myrrh, gold, and rare woods from the land of Pouanît, 
or that the king Sanofroui defeated the negroes and 
brought back 7,000 prisoners from the campaign, 
4,000 men and 3,000 women, with 20,000 head of 
cattle, and so forth. Fiscal operations are not forgotten 
in these lists, and they supplied significant names : 
Years of the statistical return of oxen, or Years of the 
statistical return of cattle and of gold f or again, Years 
of the statistical return of gold and of the fields. It 
is known that the Egyptian administration, from the 
very earliest times, was carried on by well-adjusted and 
complicated machinery. Egyptologists are surprised to 






OLD EGYPTIAN ANNALS 207 

note the regularity with which these statistical returns 
recur at fixed intervals. The Palermo Stone shows that 
under the Pharaohs of the Illrd Dynasty they were 
made every two years. One year is celebrated because 
two towns were founded or colonized; another because 
statues were erected to the gods or to deified kings. In 
short, if fortune gave us a perfect exemplar of one of 
these records we should find in it not only the complete 
history of Archaic Egypt, but also the most important 
part of that history for its contemporaries. 

Schaefer thinks that the Palermo Stone dates from the 
Vth Dynasty, and I believe he is right. The composition 
of the document, fragments of which it gives us, must 
be placed at the beginning of the fourth millenary B.c. 
Egypt had her ancient history at the time when her 
kings were building the Pyramids, and was arranging 
her records and placing them in their proper setting. 
No one will dispute that legend played a part therein, 
but it must also be admitted that, taking it altogether, 
the sources whence they are derived are excellent; 
they were partly of the kind that were dug out of the 
earth a few years ago, and they deserve the same 
favour. However, the annals of the Palermo Stone 
are certainly not the first that were written, and if we 
study them carefully we seem to discover traces of 
more than one hand. I am ready to recognize at least 
two distinct documents in it, one of which was composed 
under the IVth Dynasty, and the other, comprising the 
first, if not in its entirety, at least in its essential elements, 
would be of the middle or end of the Vth Dynasty. 
Those are questions for thorough examination and dis- 
cussion by experts. What may be stated here is that 
the chroniclers were not reduced to dip into their imagin- 
ations to reconstruct the annals of the early Dynasties. 
They possessed properly classified lists of authentic facts, 
thanks to which they could accurately relate the great 
deeds of their oldest kings. 



XXVIII 

MUMMIES OF ANIMALS IN ANCIENT EGYPT 

It would be a very difficult matter to explain why the 
Egyptians mummified their corpses; but when once 
done, they were so pleased with the result that they pur- 
sued the practice with everything that afforded material. 
They mummified their domestic animals, their oxen, 
their dogs, their cats, their gazelles, birds of the poultry- 
yard, birds of prey, sparrow-hawks by twenties, ibises 
by the hundred, innumerable eagles, countless vultures, 
without mentioning birds of less pretension ; then they 
came down to fish, serpents, lizards, even insects, the 
grasshopper as well as the beetle. And, like men, these 
creatures had their cemeteries in which they lay properly 
buried side by side, the cats at Stabl-Antar and at 
Bubastis, the dogs at Siout, the fish at Esneh, the 
gazelles and sparrow-hawks at Kom-Ombo, the monkeys 
at Thebes and at Tounah, the ibises near Abydos, the 
oxen in most places, but by preference at Sakkarah and 
Thebes. Some are put straight into the sand without 
other accoutrements than the bare wrappings; others in 
long narrow rush baskets; some are subtly hidden at 
the bottom of painted earthen pots; others again have 
a complete funerary equipment, stone sarcophagi, beau- 
tifully decorated wooden coffins, pasteboard boxes, 
jewels, amulets, statuettes destined to perform the corvées 
of the other world in their stead. Like men, Egyptian 
animals had their ranks, from the vulgar herd of prole- 
tariat cats and dogs to the aristocracy of the hermetical 

208 




page 208. 



The Mummy of a Hawk in its Coffin. 



MUMMIES OF ANIMALS 209 

ibises and the bulls of Apis, who were gods already in 
their lifetime, and who became gods in a much higher 
degree after their death. The common grave was good 
enough for the vulgar herd; the Apis of Memphis, the 
Mnevis of Heliopolis, the Bacchis of Erment, the ram of 
Mendes required a tomb or a chamber each, and their 
funerals sometimes rivalled in magnificence those of 
the Pharaohs. 

In recent times their mummies have been carefully 
sought, most often for the sake of the chemical manure 
to be derived from them, and hundreds of thousands 
have been exported to Europe. Some of their ceme- 
teries are now empty, and I found it difficult to procure 
twenty intact examples when Dr. Lortet wanted some to 
study scientifically, and determine the species. 1 He 
was interesting himself in a counter proof of the Dar- 
winian law. If changes in the morphology and inner 
structure of living organisms correspond with changes 
in the climatic conditions of their native places, it is 
indubitably proved that in districts where the climate 
has undergone no change for many thousands of years, 
vertebrates have always remained the same. From a 
very remote epoch, between the oolitic and the cretace- 
ous period, when the waters of Central Africa began to 
flow towards the Mediterranean, the climate of Egypt 
does not appear to have undergone any sensible change. 
Even without going back to the geological ages, from 
the time when the Egyptians began to build, it is evident 
from the scenes of familiar life engraved on the monu- 
ments that the valley presented the same conditions of 
climate then as now. Do the bas-reliefs and the corpses 
afford us means of discovering if any modification has 
occurred in the organism of the ancient vertebrates which 

1 Lortet and Gaillard: "La Faune Momifiée de l'Ancienne Egypte," 
First Series, 1903. (Extract from Vol. viii of the Archives of the 
Natural History Museum at Lyons.) 



2io NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

distinguishes them from their fellows of modern times? 
The reply of the documents is what it must be; the 
species of modern Egypt are identical with those of 
Pharaonic Egypt, at least those whose bones or mum- 
mies are found in the old cemeteries. The difference 
between the fauna of to-day and that of the past is not 
morphological but historical. Many new kinds were 
introduced into the country after the Arab conquest, 
while many others became rare or disappeared; those 
that have persisted through everything have not 
changed. 

Two or three points of great importance for general 
history have resulted from the analyses of Lortet and 
his collaborator, Gaillard. The Egyptian bas-reliefs 
show us the existence of two bovine species, one of 
which has short and the other long horns; the latter is 
the only species of which there are mummies in the ceme- 
teries ; Apis and Mnevis, and the sacred bulls of Mem- 
phis and Heliopolis belong to it. Now, this long-horned 
race, which appears on the monuments and which is 
beginning to be disinterred from the dust of the hypo- 
geums, is declared by Lortet and Gaillard to be none 
other than the African zebu, the Bos Africanus, large 
herds of which freely roam the plains of the Upper Nile. 
There are no reasons for believing that it is of Asiatic 
origin, nor that it came from India in the train of some 
emigrant tribe in prehistoric times. It must have had 
its origin in the central parts of Africa, and then, per- 
haps, with the races of men whence the Egyptians 
descend, have come down along the valley to the portion 
of it that formed historic Egypt, just like the hippo- 
potamus and the crocodile, which are regarded by all as 
African species. In that environment of fixed stability 
it acquired special characteristics in perfect accord with 
the conditions and climate, and it kept them such as they 
are so long as fortuitous circumstances did not com- 



MUMMIES OF ANIMALS 211 

promise it's reproduction. After the Arab conquest 
frequent murrains destroyed it, and a short-horned race 
was imported from Syria; it is only in our day, and in 
order to repair the damage done to the new race by other 
murrains, that expert Egyptian agriculturists have 
brought individuals of the old race still to be found in 
the Soudan to the Said and the Delta. The two species 
of sheep represented on the monuments, and of which 
the cemeteries restore the skeletons to us, have a similar 
history; they are purely African in origin and analogies. 
The more intimate our knowledge of the past becomes, 
the more the hypothesis that the races of men and of 
animals that peopled Egypt are of an Asiatic origin must 
be abandoned; we come to find both men and animals 
more and more African. 

In the course of his studies of these mummies Lortet 
has discovered details which will surprise and amuse 
Egyptologists. One mummy, which comes from Abousir, 
seemed to be the remains of a superb bull, nearly seven 
feet long and more than three feet broad. The wrap- 
pings were of fine linen tied with cords of palm-fibre and 
narrow list; it had a brownish coating, which is only dry 
natron, a magnificently horned head standing out from 
the whole. When unrolled, the animal changed, or 
rather became decomposed, into many animals. It 
was artificial, and made up of a large number of odd 
pieces tied together; there were the remains of seven 
males, some very old, and among them four skulls with 
toothless jaws, and atrophied by the action of time. A 
second mummy of similar origin comprised the remains 
of five animals, among them a calf hardly two and a half 
years old, and an old ox of gigantic size. A third had 
two heads, and most of those containing a whole animal 
had also the residue of several other skeletons. To 
explain this curious collection of waste material, Lortet 
very appropriately remembered the curious passage in 



2i2 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

which Herodotus relates how the fellaheen of his time 
threw their cows when they died into the Nile, but buried 
the bulls in the suburbs of their villages, letting one or 
two horns stick out to mark the presence of the corpses. 
After a certain time had elapsed and putrefaction had 
done its work, a boat arrived which took the bones to 
the island of Prosôpitis to bury them in a fixed place. 
This narrative explains why the tombs of Abousir yield 
so many incomplete animals. The priests of Memphis 
acted like those of Prosôpitis, but when the collectors 
reached the end of their voyage what they delivered to 
the embalmers was only a cargo of fleshless carcases, 
parts of which had probably been left in their first bury- 
ing-ground, and the rest had fallen to pieces in the acci- 
dents of travel. The whole was divided into several lots, 
out of which was formed the same number of mummies, 
apparently perfect but in reality only a collection of 
relics ; they were careful to choose for the head the best- 
shaped skull and that adorned with the finest horns. 
A fine mummy from Abousir, arranged in the form of a 
she-goat, only concealed a few fragments of a he-goat, 
the Hircus mambricus, lost in a profusion of bones, 
limbs, vertebras, and bony dermal scales of a large 
crocodile ; it had all been plentifully covered with tar so 
that the fragments adhered together. 

Quadrupeds, birds, fishes abound in oddities which 
Still await explanation ; many details concerning human 
mummies are still obscure, and the study of them has 
been going on for many years, while the examination 
of the mummies of animals almost begins with Lortet 
and his collaborators. We must not, then, be surprised 
if the principle of the practice is as yet uncertain, and 
if we can only put forth conjectures as to the motives 
that urged the Egyptians to embalm certain kinds of 
animals. First, we should note that the custom did not 
spread until late, probably about the time of the Persian 



MUMMIES OF ANIMALS 213 

conquest. Until then mummification was an honour 
reserved for a few individuals in each species possessing 
a supernatural character. It was not for all bulls, but 
only for those on whom marks betraying divinity were 
discerned, and who had been enthroned with ceremony 
as being the god himself, the Apis of Memphis, the 
Mnevis of Heliopolis, the Bacchis of Erment. Their 
corpses were preserved not exactly as bulls, but rather 
as gods incarnated in a bull. A god, like men, was 
composed of a body and of a double or soul, what- 
ever might be the conception that was held of the 
soul. The god, once dead to the earthly life, would not 
have participated in the joys of the life beyond had 
he not been treated in the same way as men, and as gods 
in human shape; in order that the soul and the double 
should not be annihilated, the casing in which they had 
existed in the world must not be allowed to perish. The 
mummy of the sacred ox was the necessary support of 
the god who had inhabited it, and the rites of em- 
balmment were the needful preliminaries of immortality. 
Apis, Mnevis, Bacchis, prepared with the prescribed 
ceremonies, were identified with Osiris, and passed into 
the condition of Osiris-Apis, Osiris-Mnevis, Osiris- 
Bacchis. It was the same with others, and the goose of 
Amon, the fish of Hathor, the ibis of Thot, the cat of 
Bastît, had as a principle no other reason for their mum- 
mification, except that they had provided Amon, Hathor, 
Thot, and Bastît with the form in which those divinities 
had walked the earth among their faithful believers. 

That was the beginning of the custom, and there it 
seems to have remained for a long time. But in the 
course of the ages, the veneration given to the individual 
creature chosen by the god to incorporate one of his 
doubles extended to all his fellows, and the people of 
Bubastis instead of worshipping the few cats which 
represented the goddess in the temple of the town, 



214 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

honoured all cats; the god of the nome ceased to bë a 
special cat and became the cat species in general. A 
similar evolution taking place in other quarters, holiness 
and its privileges gradually invested all the bulls in the 
nomes which had worshipped a bull, all the ibises in the 
nomes which had worshipped an ibis, all the falcons, all 
the monkeys, all the serpents, all the fishes, all the 
gazelles, all the geese in the nomes where a falcon, a 
monkey, a serpent, a fish, a gazelle, a particular goose 
was worshipped. Painful conflicts resulted between cus- 
tom and faith when the chief utility of the race was its 
suitability for food. If all oxen were more or less imbued 
with divinity, could they still be eaten ? Certain nomes 
resigned themselves to total abstinence, and those Egyp- 
tians who sent their oxen to the slaughter-house were 
regarded as impure. It was in those cases that the pious 
acted as Herodotus described, and gathered the bones 
from everywhere in order to give them a burial suited to 
divine dignity. Cemeteries for animals were instituted, 
and increased at the time when Egypt, gradually 
degenerating by contact with Western civilizations, by 
reaction against them, exaggerated the tendencies of its 
own civilization, and passed from the worship of a few 
animals to that of the whole species. I regard it as a 
relatively late development of an ancient doctrine, but 
my opinion is open to doubt. Lortet has not finished 
his researches, and the book before us is only the begin- 
ning of an important work ; perhaps the material he col- 
lects will provide us with the means of verifying the 
hypothesis and changing it into a fact. 



XXIX 

THE FORTUNE OF AN EGYPTIAN GOD THREE THOUSAND 
YEARS AGO 

When King Ramses III was tired of power he 
philosophically resolved to profit by the old age that had 
come upon him, and in the thirty-second year of his reign 
associated with himself on the throne his eldest son, 
named Ramses like himself. He crowned him with due 
ceremony before the assembled army, nobility and clergy 
in the temple of Amon at Thebes. When the new 
sovereign had been presented to his people, public and 
private life continued the even tenor of their ways. 
Ramses IV ruled, Ramses III assisted him with advice, 
but otherwise reposed from the cares of office. Find- 
ing himself with leisure, a circumstance that probably 
had not happened since the distant day when his father 
Setnakhîti had entrusted the regency to him, he used it 
to dictate to his scribes a sort of political testament 
destined to give the best idea of himself to future genera- 
tions. As if by a miracle, one of the official copies of 
this veracious act has escaped destruction, and after 
remaining in the hands of a certain Harris, English 
Consul at Alexandria, for more than a quarter of a 
century, it was purchased, printed in facsimile, published 
and translated, by the directors of the British Museum. 
It ends with a brief narrative of the exploits of Ramses 
III ; it also contains lengthy lists and magnificent descrip- 
tions of the things given by the sovereign to the gods. 
It is he who makes use of the term " given," and we 
can believe it if we please, but as a matter of fact these 

215 



2i6 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

alleged gifts were, in many cases, simple confirmation of 
donations made by his predecessors of the XVIIIth 
and XlXth Dynasties. However that may be, we have 
an authentic statement of the wealth of the clergy in the 
thirty-second year of Ramses III; the document is 
unique in its kind up to the present time. 

The terms are sometimes a little vague, and we must 
not expect to find the detailed statistics contained in the 
Polyptic of Irminon, for example; precision in detail 
was scarcely the strong point of a Pharaoh when com- 
posing panegyrics. Besides, if the authors had desired 
to include the dimensions of each domain, with the 
names of the farmers, tenants, husbandmen, slaves who 
worked on it, a whole library, not a single papyrus roll, 
would have been required. They state what belongs to 
the gods of the three chief cities, Thebes, Heliopolis and 
Memphis, then to those of the lesser towns, men, 
gardens, corn-lands, cattle, boats, market-towns and 
villages. Although indicated generally and in lump 
sums, the information furnished by the Harris papyrus 
enables us to imagine quite well the extent and nature 
of the sacerdotal wealth. It would be too long and 
tedious a business to transcribe the portions which apply 
to each sanctuary; it will be sufficient to extract what 
concerns Amon of Thebes, the most honoured and most 
wealthy of the gods of Egypt. He possessed 5,164 
divine statues; 81,322 vassals, servants and slaves; 
421,262 head of cattle, large and small; 433 gardens and 
orchards; about 60,000 acres of corn-land; 83 ships; 
46 building yards ; 65 cities, market-towns and villages, 
seven of which were in Asia. And that was not all; 
during the thirty-two years of his reign he had received 
as votive gifts or offerings vast quantities of gold, 
silver and copper; 3,722 pieces of material, tens of 
thousands of bushels of corn; 289,530 birds, besides 
large quantities of thread, flax, oil, wine and incense. 






FORTUNE OF AN EGYPTIAN GOD 217 

These things represent tributes or dues over and above 
the ordinary revenue from the landed estate. Anion 
was then a very great personage, the greatest in Egypt 
after the king. He dominated at least a tenth, perhaps 
an eighth of the valley, and, like all mortmains, mani- 
fested a tendency to increase rather than to diminish. 

Most modern historians, remembering that a hundred 
or a hundred and fifty years after this Ramses, the 
High Priest of Amon proclaimed himself king, con- 
cluded that the revolution which substituted a theocracy 
for the military authority of the Ramses, was favoured, 
if not wholly brought about, by the enrichment of the 
priesthood to the detriment of the dynasty. Their idea 
has lately been disputed by Erman. 1 He does not con- 
sider the figures of the Harris papyrus as convincing as 
they seemed to his predecessors. According to him, 
even if we strain the calculation, Amon's domain would 
not occupy more than a sixth, at most, of the territory of 
Egypt proper, not more, probably, than a tenth ; would 
that be likely to destroy Pharaoh's power ? It would be 
the' same with the vassal population ; reckon it as high 
as you like, it would not at most attain a hundredth part 
of the total population of Egypt. The dues spread over 
thirty-two years would leave only a very small amount 
for each. In short, Amon was certainly very wealthy, 
but not sufficiently so to overshadow the authority of the 
sovereigns. If the Ramses disappeared, and yielded 
their place to the priesthood, their fall should not be 
ascribed solely to the power that the wealth of the god 
gave their adversaries; other factors intervened. Erman 
came to the conclusion that the plan on which the history 
of that epoch has been written, ought to undergo much 
modification, and although the concise manner in which 

1 A. Erman : " Zur Erklaerung des Papyrus Harris.' 5 Extract from 
the Sitzungsbericht of the Berlin Academy, 1903, No. lxxxi, pp. 456- 
474- 



2i8 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

he conducts the discussion lends a great weight to his 
opinion, I doubt if it would be wise to admit it without 
reserve. I do not know if others have regarded the 
enrichment of Amon as the unique determining cause of 
the ruin of the Ramses; for my part I have for a long 
time shown other reasons, equally cogent, which caused 
the direct line of the great Ramses to be replaced by 
a family of pontiff sovereigns. It would be a great 
undertaking to set them forth in full, but it is quite easy 
to note them briefly. 

First, the Harris papyrus only shows the apanage of 
the god about the end of the reign of Ramses III, at 
a time when the treasury of the Pharaohs was regularly 
fed by tribute from Syria. In the course of the following 
century the kings gradually abandoned those distant 
provinces, and their treasuries became impoverished; 
Egypt alone had to supply resources which had formerly 
been derived partly from Egypt and partly from foreign 
lands. During that period Amon's treasury did not 
suffer in the same proportion as the royal treasury; it 
lost the revenue of a few Syrian towns, but that was no 
great matter in his affairs taken as a whole, and as, 
on the other hand, he received donations from Egyptian 
territory at each new reign, we shall probably be under- 
estimating rather than overestimating the facts, if we 
suppose that, so far as he was concerned, the gains com- 
pensated for the losses. If he merely remained station- 
ary, while royalty fell back and lost power, the priest- 
hood would grow in power, or rather, the difference 
between his wealth and that of Pharaoh being lessened, 
his influence would have greater weight in the destinies 
of the country. The priesthood was thus encouraged to 
demand the inheritance in favour of its supreme head. 
Until then, in fact, the high priest had been chosen and 
nominated by the king; from the time of Ramses III he 
was always chosen in the same family, and the son sue- 



FORTUNE OF AN EGYPTIAN GOD 219 

ceeded his father on the pontifical throne. From that time 
events marched quickly. The Theban mortmain was 
doubled with a veritable seignorial fief, which his masters 
increased by marriages with the heirs of neighbouring 
fiefs, by continual bequests from one branch of the 
family to the other, by the placing of cadets of each 
generation at the head of the clergy of certain secondary 
towns. The official protocol of the offices filled by their 
wives shows that a century or a century and a half after 
Ramses III, almost the whole of the Thebaid, about the 
third of the Egyptian territory, was in the hands of 
the High Priest of Amon and of his family. He ruled 
the larger number of the towns and nomes, from 
Assouan to Siout and beyond, under the king, and those 
which did not come directly under his power were 
dependent on him by virtue of the functions he fulfilled 
at court. He commanded the armies, administered the 
finances, governed the southern countries and was Vice- 
roy of Ethiopia. His authority was at that time set on 
sufficiently complex foundations. It resulted in some 
slight degree from the civil and military offices with 
which he was invested. It rested on the large number 
of fiefs of which he was hereditary lord, and which 
represented the apanage of his family. It rested lastly 
on the revenues and lands which formed the patrimony 
proper of Arnonra. 

We have no means of knowing the proportions 
assumed by each of those elements of his influence, nor 
if his family possessions were larger than the mortmain 
of the god; together they procured him a situation that 
caused the Ramses to succumb before him. The day 
he ascended the throne he was already the owner of 
the valley from the confluence of the Blue Nile to the 
environs of Siout; further north his property was too 
thinly scattered for him to have the upper hand, and a 
family rose up at Tanis which, supported by the popu- 



220 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

lous cities of the Delta, compelled the Thebans to take an 
oath of vassalage to it. Egypt was thenceforth divided 
into two unequal parts, of which the southern formed 
a principality ruled nominally by Amon, but actually 
by the descendants of his prophets. If the wealth of 
the god was not the unique cause, it was at least the 
chief instrument : without the resources it afforded to 
the high priests they would not have succeeded so 
quickly in claiming the inheritance, then in acquiring the 
personal property which, added to the divine property, 
soon gave them superiority over the Pharaohs. The 
Harris papyrus is a valuable document of ancient Egypt. 
It gives a detailed inventory of Amon's possessions at 
the critical period of his career, and so enables us to 
calculate with sufficient likelihood the power possessed 
by his representatives, and to bring to light one of 
the means used by them to turn the military fief of 
Thebes into a theocratic principality. 






XXX 

THE PALACE OF AN EGYPTIAN PHARAOH AT THEBES 

We know in detail the habitations of the Egyptian 
gods and how they lived in them ; gigantic, innumerable 
temples are there to tell us, some so well preserved 
in the essential parts that one or two days' work would 
almost suffice to prepare them for the services, others 
dismantled or in ruins, yet not so much so that we 
cannot with a little trouble restore the plan. The gods, 
indeed, exacted everlasting dwellings, and the Pharaohs, 
solicitous to please them, bestowed on them the most 
durable material, limestone, sandstone, granite, alabas- 
ter; they reserved wood and dry bricks for themselves, 
and for twenty temples that have been preserved, we 
count hardly two or three royal palaces, for they are so 
seriously damaged that their plan is not very clear. 
One of them, a little less of a fragment than the others, 
is in course of being excavated at Thebes, on the left 
bank of the river, at the south of Medinet-Habou. It 
was explored for the first time in the winter of 1888-9 
by Grébaut, then from 1900 the methodical clearing 
out was undertaken by an Englishman, Mr. Newbury, 
at the expense of R. de P. Tytus, an American. Now, 
after three years, many of the buildings of which 
it consisted have been dug out and its plan can be 
clearly distinguished. 1 The few tourists whom curiosity 
takes there can study at their ease the favourite 

1 "A preliminary report on the re-excavation of the palace of 
Amenhetep III," by Robb de Peyser Tytus. 1903. 

221 



222 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

residence of Amenôthês III, one of the most illustrious 
sovereigns of the XVIIIth Dynasty, and they can freely 
walk through the most private apartments, even those in 
which the queen shut herself up with the ladies of her 
suite. 

The buildings rose from alluvial earth covered by 
sand, but which was then well watered, and allowed the 
laying out of beautiful gardens on the edge of the desert. 
Towards the east could be seen the steep slopes and the 
peaked mountains of Libya, towards the west and south 
the fields and groves of the Theban plain; towards the 
north Amenôthês III saw the masonry of the funerary 
temple he was building, and above the line of the cornices 
the heads of the two colossi erected by his minister, 
Amenôthês, son of Hapouî, to his glory. 1 The chapels 
of his predecessors retreated one behind the other to the 
entrance of the valley which leads to the tombs of the 
kings, and beyond the Nile, its feet bathed in the eddies 
of the stream, the Thebes of the living extended as far 
as the eye could reach ; Louxor and its sanctuary faintly 
outlined, Ashirou with its high grey ramparts, Karnak 
with its silhouette indented with obelisks, closed the 
horizon. The Pharaoh watched over the turbulent city 
to which he was sufficiently near to reach it in an hour 
if his presence was required, and sufficiently far to escape 
the smells and noise of the streets. A little town had 
arisen round him, a town of luxury and official cere- 
monies, in which each of the great officers of the crown 
possessed their lodging, where picked artisans made the 
things required by the court, goldsmiths skilled in melt- 
ing and chasing the gold of Syria or Ethiopia, engravers 
on fine stones, glass-makers, enamellers, embroiderers, 
weavers. The remains of the quarters in which they 
lived have been brought to light, and here and there the 
sites of their workshops may be recognized. Scoriae 
1 Cf. Chapter XXV. 



PALACE OF AN EGYPTIAN PHARAOH 223 

of coloured pastes and enamels mark the place of the 
glass-makers, as the fellaheen of the district well know ; 
they provide themselves with whole or broken objects 
which they sell to strangers. Amenôthês III had a 
passion for jewels, and for pottery in blue or polychrome 
enamel. The pieces so much admired by us for their 
bright tones, brilliant glaze, purity, elegance of shape, 
and delicacy of workmanship, have come for years from 
the ruins of his villa; there are cups in the shape of the 
calyx of a full-blown lotus flower, drinking vessels which 
simulate a pond teeming with aquatic plants and peopled 
with fishes, collyrium pots, ampullas, flower vases, amu- 
lets, round or long beads for necklaces and bracelets, 
plain rings, and rings with gems. Some are mere 
rubbish and rough fragments, but if these are so beauti- 
ful, we ask what the perfect pieces must have been like 
in their first freshness. 

The palace itself is rectangular in shape. It was sur- 
rounded by a wall of medium thickness, pierced by doors 
at rare and irregular intervals. The outer side of the 
wall is a blind, undeco rated façade. Beyond it came a 
veritable labyrinth of narrow courtyards, pillared halls, 
small chambers, garrets all communicating with one 
another, and here and there ending in blind alleys. The 
surface thus covered measures rather more than four 
acres. The remains of the walls are rarely higher than 
about five feet, in more than one place only the levellings 
are left, or even only the trenches hollowed for the 
foundations. The thickness varied from a little over a 
foot and a half to a little over three feet, according to the 
size of the rooms, and they were about eighteen feet 
high. The whole was of unbaked bricks, some of which 
had received the impression of the two cartouches of the 
king. The floor was of beaten clay, which had become 
as hard as stone. The walls were covered with a rough 
coat of mud, like that everywhere employed in the 



22 4 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

villages. The ceilings were of two slightly different 
kinds. In the smaller rooms and in the corridors small 
beams of palm or acacia wood were thrown across from 
wall to wall, heavy palm fibre mats were placed above, 
covered with a thick layer of beaten earth. A more com- 
plicated method was used for the halls. A series of 
beams, such as I have just described, was placed on the 
wooden architraves which connected the pillars, and 
they were fastened by means of joists firmly joined 
above ; then the sunk panels were filled in with soft clay, 
so that a heavy, stiff covering was obtained with plenty 
of resisting power. The fragments of ceilings which 
lie scattered among the ruins, and the still standing 
bases of walls bear traces of bright, cheerful paintings of 
the same type as those we admire in the tombs and 
temples. Vultures with outspread wings, and flocks of 
geese or ducks, framed in many-coloured curved or 
spiral lines, soar on the ceilings. Figures of women 
dance on the walls, and the pavements, similar to those 
in the palaces of El-Amarna, 1 seem to be pools of water 
filled with aquatic plants or marshes with grazing oxen. 
Fish pursue each other under the waters, birds sport 
among the lotus flowers, and captives bound in uncom- 
fortable positions line the banks. 

Nothing in the aspect of the place authorizes us to 
conjecture exactly how the family and their servants dis- 
tributed themselves through the palace, but we can dis- 
tinguish the grand apartments from those used in 
everyday life. Two oblong, rectangular walls, sup- 
ported by two parallel lines of columns, were evidently 
used as guard-rooms; there the crowd of courtiers an< 
officers of the crown assembled, and on audience 01 
festival days hierarchically took up their positions, eacl 
according to his rank. Foreign ambassadors waited 
there until the moment of offering the gifts or tributes of 
1 Cf. Chapter VII. 



PALACE OF AN EGYPTIAN PHARAOH 225 

their masters ; generals, on their return from a successful 
expedition, received there the reward of their victory. 
Important persons of Thebes and of the whole of Egypt 
paid homage there to Pharaoh with due eloquence and 
genuflexion. The semi-barbarous pomp of the Egyptian 
court pervaded the place with its contrasts of extreme 
refinement and African barbarity. It was displayed in 
garments of almost transparent lawn, and in skins of 
animals, in paint, in tattooing, in flowers in profusion, 
in strong perfumes on heads and bodies; perhaps 
solemn banquets were given there, and bestial feasting 
succeeded the interminable palavers in which sovereign 
and subjects exchanged the most extravagant compli- 
ments, like the negro or Malgache chiefs of our day. 
An antechamber of modest dimensions led to the private 
cabinet of Amenôthês III. Persons admitted to the 
honour of the royal presence suddenly saw before them, 
framed by two columns of painted wood, the dais on 
which the Majesty of the living Horus deigned to reveal 
himself to them, and, set off against the semi-darkness, 
the luminous figure of Pharaoh. It appeared to them 
like a sacred image, in the stiff attitude of sovereignty, 
immovable, the eyes fixed, symbolical diadems on the 
forehead, the sceptre and anserated cross in the hands, 
all shining with gold and enamel. They had to cover 
their eyes as if unable to endure the brightness of the 
divine countenance, then to throw themselves flat on the 
ground and smelling at the earth, to wait until the idol 
spoke to them. The postures varied according to their 
rank, and according to the degree of favour desirable 
to show them. Some were left prostrated, nose againsi 
the ground; others remained kneeling, others again 
stood, but bent in two; some enjoyed the privilege of 
standing up straight with only the head slightly bent. 
Like the religious services, the royal receptions were a 
sort of ballet accompanied with words, each act of which 



226 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

was regulated with an attention to detail enough to have 
plunged a Byzantine master of the ceremonies into 
despair. Persons entered amidst singing, and left 
amidst shouts accompanied by the sound of timbrels, 
and the conversation which occurred at the interview 
had to be spoken in rhythm and with carefully studied 
intonations. A voice in perfect tune was required for 
addressing the lords of the earth, just as for addressing 
the lords of heaven. 

The bathrooms were numerous, as beseemed a prince 
who was half a god, and whose sacerdotal functions 
imposed strict cleanliness. Three of them still contained, 
when they were excavated, the slabs of stone on which 
the bather crouched or lay in order to be dried and 
massaged, and the pipes which brought the water. A 
few bedrooms were near at hand, with the platform on 
which the bed stood. Other rooms, smaller and quite 
bare, seem to have belonged to the servants. Nothing 
has yet shown us where the kitchens were, but so much 
still remains to be excavated that there is every chance 
of seeing them rise up out of the earth during one of 
the next campaigns. It will be the same with the store- 
houses, arsenals, granaries, chapels, necessary adjuncts 
of every royal or princely villa. The tombs of El- 
Amarna show us what intense life went on there. The 
artist has drawn there the palace built by the fanatic 
Khouniatonou, son of Amenôthês III, and the people of 
his court, almost on the plan and with the decoration of 
the palace of Medinet-Habou. In the hall, Pharaoh and 
his family are receiving some high functionary; the 
guard watches at the doors, and chamberlains introduce 
the personage, while troops of slaves bring refreshments 
and the customary gifts. A priest is busily celebrating 
a ceremony of votive offerings in one of the chapels. 
A maid-servant tucks herself into bed in a little room. 
Scribes or inferior employés take their meals in their 



PALACE OF AN EGYPTIAN PHARAOH 227 

own rooms. A dancing-girl rehearses her steps in a 
retired corner of the palace, her companions accompany- 
ing her on the guitar, and they are all preparing to shine 
at the fête in the evening. These scenes need only be 
transported to Medinet-Habou to repeople the palace, 
and to behold it as it was in the days of its splendour. 
Indeed, the care with which the Egyptian artists repre- 
sented all the episodes of domestic life is carried so far, 
that we may sometimes read above the figures the most 
characteristic of the conversations they held; the echo 
of their talk reaches us faint and broken through the 
distance of time. In going through the rooms we in- 
stinctively restore the furniture to its place, the beds, 
with lion's head and feet, piled with their red mattresses, 
the arm-chairs, the small tables, the variegated boxes, 
the perfume and kohol pots, all that belongs to the 
world of Egyptian coquetry. It would not surprise us 
to meet in some retired corner the sleeping maid-servant, 
or the dancing-girl rehearsing her steps. 



XXXI 

AN EGYPTIAN BOOK OF PROPHECIES 

Like the Hebrews, the Egyptians had their holy pro- 
phets, whose predictions circulated from mouth to 
mouth, were then written down, and copied through long 
ages in fragments more or less changed fromtheoriginal, 
and, lastly, became classical texts read and commented 
on in the schools. Chance has preserved little of these 
interesting works, and that little is not always easy to 
understand. The one, the fragments of which Lange 
has just analyzed, 1 is rendered very obscure by the 
lacunae which occur in every line of the text. It fills one 
of the papyri sold by Anastasi to the Leyden Museum ; it 
was paraphrased in German by Lauth more than thirty 
years ago, and I expounded it at the École des Hautes- 
Études, but these various attempts did not secure for 
it the attention it deserves. Now, again, Lange gives 
only a summary interpretation, translating the phrases 
which seem to him most clear, and indicating the prob- 
able meaning of the others, intending to prove his 
assertions in a memoir to appear shortly. He will have 
plenty to do to explain the detail; so far, however, he 
has defined the framework and indicated the plan with 
sufficient clarity to enable us to form an opinion on the 
value of the work. 

The prophet was named Apouî ; we are not told if it was 
his vocation to predict the future, or if the divine spirit 

1 H. O. Lange : " Prophezeiungen eines ^Egyptischen Weisen 
aus dem Papyrus I, 344, in Leiden," in the Sitzungsberichte of the 
Berlin Academy of Sciences, XXVII, 1903. 

228 



EGYPTIAN BOOK OF PROPHECIES 229 

seized him by chance, as it did Amenôphis, 1 the potter, 
for the beginning of the volume has disappeared. When 
the text becomes fairly coherent, the hero is standing 
before Pharaoh. He is speaking as beseems a prophet, 
and his whole discourse is of the disasters that are 
about to fall on Egypt. Family ties will be broken, 
society will be overturned, dejection will lay hold of 
all the people. " It is in vain that the Nile will 
overflow, the fields will no longer be cultivated by its 
aid ; each man will say : ' What is the use of it ? Do we 
not know what is going to happen to the land?' The 
women will be barren, for Khnoumou, the god of birth, 
will not help them because of the condition of Egypt. 
People of lowly rank will become the possessors of all the 
valuables, so that he who lacked the wherewithal to pro- 
cure himself a pair of sandals will be the owner of gran- 
aries full of grain. Terrible epidemics will break out 
which will attack all classes alike. The plague will lay 
hold of Egypt, there will be bloodshed everywhere; the 
rich will lament, the poor will rejoice, and all the cities 
will say : ' Let us drive out the powerful from among us.' 
The expulsion will not take place without resistance, and 
civil war will desolate the valley ; the rivers will be turned 
into blood, and, although ye will not like it, ye will have 
to drink of it, and thirst after water." The barbarians of 
the desert will profit by the general weakness to invade 
the rich black earth they have so long desired ; they will 
massacre the brave people who resist them, and the 
slaves, being no more in bondage, will supplant their 
masters. "They will hang gold, lapis-lazuli, silver, 
malachite, cornelian round the necks of their wives, while 
princesses will be thrown into the street, and high-born 
dames will say : ' If only we had something to eat !' " And 
everything that exists will be destroyed; there will be 
no more taxes, no more hierarchy, no more privileges. 
1 Cf. Chapter XXV. 



2 3 o NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

" The son of some one of standing will no longer be 
preferred to him who is the son of one of no rank," and 
" the very animals will weep, the cattle will lament for 
the wretched condition of the country." The temples 
will no longer be respected; the holy things will be 
desecrated by sacrilegious hands. " The books of the 
sanctuary will be taken away, and the mysterious shrines 
will be unveiled; the magic charms will be revealed; 
the archives will be opened, and the titles to property 
be stolen." Violence will prevail everywhere. " Woe 
to me, on account of the triumph of evil !" 

So far, royalty was spared, and it might be hoped that 
Pharaoh would succeed in restoring peace îo his king- 
dom; but he is attacked in his turn, and his impotence 
consummates the ruin of the classes which depended on 
him. " Behold, the rich man sleeps without having 
been able to quench his thirst, while he who was reduced 
to beg a little sour wine is now the owner of well-filled 
jars. The owner of fine stuffs has now only rags, but he 
for whom none wove is possessor of fine muslins. He who 
could not build for himself the poorest sort of boat is* the 
master of granaries full of grain, and he who possessed 
granaries has not even a boat. He who lacked water- 
melons now possesses them, and those who had them 
are now empty as air. He who lacked bread has now a 
granary, and his larder is furnished with what lately be- 
longed to another. He who had his head shaved, and 
lacked perfumed essences, is now rich in pots of sweet- 
smelling myrrh." All the contrasts that wide knowledge 
of Egyptian society and its manners could suggest to a 
clever writer, abound in the following pages. We see 
pass over them in succession the beggar-woman who had 
no other mirror than the water, and who now paints her 
eyes before a beautiful disk of polished metal ; the poor 
devils who formerly could not obtain a pair of oxen for 
their plough suddenly find themselves possessors of a 



EGYPTIAN BOOK OF PROPHECIES 231 

whole herd ; the workman without one slave is the master 
of hundreds of serfs; the rich man of former days is in 
these unhappy times compelled to sit as a parasite at the 
table of a man who was formerly poor, and is now pro- 
moted to be rich in his turn. For those who can read the 
original, it is clear that that portion of the prophecy was 
in a very elaborate style. Alliteration abounds, and 
every sentence moves to a fairly regular rhythm ; in more 
than one case I should even say that there were asso- 
nances, if our ignorance of the exact pronunciation did 
not compel me to step warily. It is certain that the bril- 
liancy of expression, and the sonority of the elocution, 
concealed the poverty and banality of the matter from 
the auditors. Now we are most struck by all that is com- 
monplace in the inspiration of the prophet, and fail to 
understand what were the qualities that justified his suc- 
cess. The text, robbed of what assured it its literary 
value, and stripped of its prophetic importance, has only 
one sort of interest for us : it reveals to us numerous 
details of the life of the time that the sculptured 
monuments fail to give. 

Like most of his kind, however, the prophet was too 
prudent to leave his hearers or readers with an impression 
of terror, or even of sadness. After enumerating at 
length the misfortunes of his people, he had to promise 
them at equal length a triumphant return of prosperity. 
Following the particular rhetorical form, a sovereign 
raised up by God will suddenly appear, and " will bring 
fresh water for the burning flames. It is said he is the 
shepherd of all men, who has no evil in his heart, and 
when his flock goes astray, spends the day in seeking it." 
He restores peace, and under his beneficent influence 
social life flourishes again, marriages again become fruit- 
ful, safety reigns on all the highways. Egypt, having 
recovered her warlike power, the races who surround her, 
Bedouins, Negroes, Libyans, again submit to her yoke. 



2 3 2 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

In that portion of the manuscript the lacunae are so con- 
siderable that the text cannot be restored. We can 
scarcely deduce the series of ideas from the fragments of 
phrases we decipher, we feel them rather. 

It is, however, clear that the dominating idea is that 
of the good shepherd ; the prophet draws an ideal portrait 
of him, and liberally endows him with the virtues that 
the Egyptians exacted of the model Pharaoh. He must 
be both administrator and general, in order to enrich his 
people by the arts of war as well as by those of peace. 
For the Egyptian, happiness consists in not working 
himself, or at least in doing as little work as possible, 
and in enjoying the material comfort to which his fortune 
gives him a right. Delicate fare, fine clothes, precious 
jewels, a house cool in summer and warm in winter, a 
garden with an artificial lake to which he repairs to 
breathe " the soft wind of the north," songs, dances, a 
harem, are the things he craves. The king predicted by 
the prophet will ensure his subjects this lazy, sensual 
existence until the day comes when death exiles them to 
the domain of Osiris ; in his wars he will gain what is 
required to spare them the need to work, gold, silver, 
perfumes, stuffs, and, above all, male and female slaves 
who will dig the ground, practise trades, recruit the 
army, will be the producers of their luxuries and the 
instruments of their pleasures. 

The themes chosen are not of a high order, and their 
treatment, at least to us, does not compensate for the 
banality of the inspiration. Apouî does not appear to 
great advantage if compared with some of the Hebrew 
prophets. It must not, however, be hastily concluded 
that the prophetic literature of Egypt was always so 
poor in quality and sentiment. All who took up pro- 
phesying, either professionally or as amateurs, were not 
necessarily men of genius ; for a few Isaiahs, how many 
poor rhetoricians there were among the Hebrews ! Apouî 



EGYPTIAN BOOK OF PROPHECIES 233 

certainly knew all the threads, and must have success- 
fully manipulated them, since his book was copied long 
after his day, but we no longer appreciate the turns of 
his language, and, when we study ancient Egypt, 
matter interests us more than form, and with him the 
matter is mediocre. What gives him worth in our eyes 
is the fact that, so far, he is the first to show us a frag- 
ment of what was a branch of Egyptian literature. We 
knew that the Pharaohs had a priesthood specially 
charged to inform them of the will of the gods ; were its 
members always professionals, who uttered the oracles 
in few words, without any pretension to literary style, or 
were there some among them who prided themselves on 
their fine language? We now know that prophecy on 
occasion had a literary form among the Egyptians, as 
among the Semites; it was so under the Xllth Dynasty, 
to which Apouî is said to have belonged, and it was 
doubtless so under earlier Dynasties. We hope some 
day to find other and better works of a similar sort, 
which may worthily stand beside the great Hebrew 
prophecies. 



XXXII 

THE EGYPTIAN ORIGIN OF THE ATTIC DIONYSUS 

Thé Athenians knew that Dionysus came to them from 
abroad, but otherwise had only confused ideas about his 
origin. Foucart has just discovered it in Egypt, in the 
Osiris of the Infernal Regions. 1 It is not his first at- 
tempt at such researches, for ten years ago he showed 
in what close relations the Eleusinian mysteries stood to 
the religion of Egypt. 2 The thesis he there laid down 
caused more astonishment than approbation in the 
classical world. The Hellenists of the present day often 
treat the East as the Hellenes did in old days. The 
latter knew, associated with and ruled Egyptians, Chal- 
daeans, Assyrians, and Phoenicians for centuries, and 
could have given us exact information about them; but 
to do that they would have had to learn barbarous 
tongues, to have consulted books written in complicated 
characters, to have deciphered inscriptions, in fact, to 
have taken a great deal of trouble. They preferred to 
make their inquiries of the dragomans, and to beg tales 
of them, rounding off what they thus learned with in- 
ventions of their own brains. If, perchance, a native, 
Manetho or Berosus, tried to correct them, they did 
not take the trouble to copy their works and read 
them. The Hellenists have behaved in the same way. 
Ancient tradition showed them the part that the East 

1 " Le Culte de Dionysos en Attique," par P. Foucart, Member of 
the Institute. (Extract from the Mémoires de F Académie des Inscrip- 
tions et Belles-Lettres^ Vol. xxxvii. 1904.) 

2 Cf. Chapter VI. 

234 



ORIGIN OF THE ATTIC DIONYSUS 235 

had had in the formation of Greece, and Egypt and 
Assyria were at hand with documents which would 
enable them to judge of the authenticity of those tradi- 
tions, but it would have been necessary to free them- 
selves from the classical routine and to venture among 
hieroglyphics and cuneiforms. Many are now bold 
enough to do so, and both they and the cause of 
learning reap the benefit. It is M. Foucart's merit to 
have prepared the way, and those who follow the plan 
he has traced will have every chance of success. 

Everything he demonstrates is not equally convincing, 
and for a variety of reasons. Dionysus is a complex 
god in whom several gods of differing origins are 
mingled. The legends of him in the various districts 
of Greece are involved and entangled in each other ; the 
meaning of certain ceremonies or certain names has be- 
come changed or lost with the passage of time, and 
ordinary people as well as students, no longer under- 
standing them, have lent them fantastic explanations. 
Further, it happens that, with very few exceptions, the 
sacred emblems and the formulas of prayer which might 
have revealed origins were destroyed at the time of the 
extinction of paganism. Most of the characteristic cere- 
monies were performed in profound mystery by a small 
number of persons, under oath to reveal nothing, and it 
would have been sacrilege to repeat even the most in- 
significant detail. The only things on which modern 
students can base their opinions are fragments of in- 
scriptions, scattered allusions and discussions in the 
ancient writers, glosses borrowed from older scholars by 
scholiasts of a later epoch who did not wholly under- 
stand the texts they transcribed. It is not easy to find 
one's way among this doubtful information, and to dis- 
tinguish the truth. It is possibly to be discovered at 
points very distant in time, and the interpretation of a 
myth will be found to have varied considerably between 



236 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 



•o 



the fifth century before and the second century after 
Christ. It seems that Dionysus would have appeared in 
the lesser mysteries not only as the protector of agricul- 
ture, but as the sovereign of the Infernal Regions. In 
that double quality he corresponded to the Egyptian 
Osiris, but our information on the point is so scanty 
that we cannot do more than conjecture. Similarly, the 
legend that ascribes the discovery of vine culture and 
the making of wine to Dionysus reminds us that the 
Egyptians gave the honour of those inventions to Osiris; 
but it is only a subordinate feature with the Egyptians, 
whereas in Greece Dionysus soon came to preside, pre- 
eminent and unique, over wine. If the worship had 
not more completely preserved more essential character- 
istics, it would be almost impossible to justify the 
identity in origin of Dionysus and Osiris. The rites of 
the festivals, especially those of the Anthestêria, are the 
only things that still prove it. 

The Anthestêria were the most ancient and the most 
solemn of the festivals of Dionysus, and were, besides, 
common to all the Ionians; they comprised almost in- 
coherent extremes of joy and sadness, "as if Shrove 
Tuesday and All Saints' Day were mingled together." 
It began on the nth of the month Anthestêrion, by the 
opening of the jars which contained the new wine. The 
jars uncorked, the next day, the 12th, the rustics took 
the unfermented grape juice to the town; from their 
chariots they apostrophized the passers-by, who returned 
their jests with interest. In each house the head of the 
family invited his relatives to a banquet in which three- 
year-old children crowned with flowers took part for the 
first time; even the slaves shared in the general jubila- 
tion, and received their portion of wine. Meanwhile, by 
invitation of the priest, a group of citizens assembled at 
the temple ; they brought provisions in a basket, and an 
earthen jar holding more than three quarts of wine. 



ORIGIN OF THE ATTIC DIONYSUS 237 

EaGh sat down alone at his table, and the sacred hero 
having proclaimed the laws of the meeting, at a signal 
of the trumpet they attacked their repast. The first to 
empty his pitcher received a skin of wine as a prize from 
the archon-king who presided over the festival. The 
drinkers did not afterwards consecrate the wreaths they 
had worn during the feast in the temples, but placed 
them on their jars and delivered them to the priestess in 
the sanctuary of Limnse, and the losers poured the wine 
left over as a libation. That was the visible and popular 
part of the festival. The fundamental rites were cele- 
brated in the sanctuary of the Priest of Dionysus without 
profane witnesses. That sanctuary was the oldest and 
most revered of any in Athens, and was only opened 
on the 1 2th Anthestêrion ; the doors were then unclosed 
before the queen, the wife of the archon-king, and before 
her fourteen companions. A sacred herald, probably 
he of Eleusis, assisted the queen when she exacted an 
oath from her followers to reveal nothing of what would 
be done, said, or seen ; then he allowed her to enter the 
cell, where no other accompanied her. When she came 
out she was formally married to the god, and the mystic 
marriage was consummated the night after in a special 
building, the Boucolion, which had been the residence of 
the archon-king in the heroic ages. The statue of the 
god repaired to the nuptial house, where it stayed until 
the morrow, after which it returned to the sanctuary, and 
the doors closed behind it until the 12th Anthestêrion of 
the next year. The festival concluded on the 13th with 
a veritable funeral offering, in which neither priest nor 
magistrate intervened. During the night each family 
put a new saucepan on the fire and cooked in it without 
meat a mixture of flour and all sorts of grain. No one 
ate of it, but it was offered for the dead before Hermes, 
the conductor of souls, and before Dionysus, the two 
divinities of the Infernal Regions. The Anthestêria, 



23 8 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

begun noisily in drunken revels, ended silently in 
solemn mourning. 

Those mysteries, so sacred to the ancients, would be 
incomprehensible to us if certain details did not reveal 
their purpose and analogy. The queen's companions 
were fourteen in number, and offered sacrifices to 
Dionysus on fourteen altars, with other ceremonies not 
less secret than the rest. The ceremonial commemorated 
both the number of murderers who, according to the 
Cretan legend, massacred Dionysus, and the number of 
pieces into which they divided the corpse. Foucart rightly 
mentions the Egyptian legend in which Typhon, having 
assassinated Osiris, tore his victim into fourteen pieces, 
which he scattered among the nomes. Isis collected 
them, put them together, and from their union drew her 
Osiris, whom she resuscitated. The passion and resur- 
rection of Osiris took place every year in all the temples 
of Egypt, at the festivals of the month of Kihak. The 
sisters Isis and Nephthys, assisted by Horus and 
Anubis, made in fourteen moulds the fourteen pieces 
of which the divine body had been reconstructed, and 
then combined them into a perfect statue. They then 
endowed the statue with life, and rising from its funeral 
couch, it became again the god himself. Osiris, thus 
called into being, took up all his functions again, even 
to uniting himself with Isis, a circumstance Foucart 
has perhaps not quite sufficiently demonstrated, and 
was replaced in his tomb by another image for use at 
the festival of the following year. Our knowledge of 
the ceremonies of the Anthestêria scarcely permits us to 
doubt that the Egyptian Osiris was the original of the 
Attic Dionysus. We have in both cases the resurrec- 
tion of a god who had been treacherously mutilated. 
The number of pieces is the same, and the march of 
events identical : just as Isis sought everywhere for the 
remains of Osiris, so Demeter never rested till she had 



ORIGIN OF THE ATTIC DIONYSUS 239 

gathered together those of Dionysus, and only after she 
had restored the body did the god come again into exist- 
ence. The mysteries of the 12th Anthestêrion exactly 
reproduced the principal features of the Egyptian legend 
and the practices to which it gave rise. The queen and 
her companions entered the temple where the statue had 
rested since the preceding year, and pretended to search 
for the fourteen pieces of the god ; then the queen alone 
put them together, and having formed a new image she 
took it in her arms, and carried it into the sanctuary in 
order to bring it to life. We do not know what deeds 
she performed, or what formulas she used, but their 
result was immediately manifest. Dionysus rose out of 
the darkness, alive, young, and vigorous, and went to 
the Boucolion to contract marriage with the wife of the 
archon-king. The next day he returned to his temple 
to die and to be resolved again into his fourteen pieces, 
and then he fell back into the solitude of his tomb. The 
placing of the saucepans on the fire, the cooking and 
offering of various grains and of flour, clearly point to 
the funeral signification of the rites with which the 
Anthestêria concluded. Families took advantage of the 
moment when the sanctuary closed on the inanimate god 
to entrust him to take to their dead relatives the nourish- 
ment of which they imagined they would have need. 

The Egyptian style of these ideas did not fail to strike 
those students who knew something of the researches of 
Egyptologists, and the proof would be absolute if our 
knowledge of the ancients was as connected and co- 
ordinate as Foucart presents it. Unfortunately it is so 
isolated and disjointed that many Hellenists will be 
inclined to ask if Foucart has not in all good faith him- 
self introduced what seems to him the Egyptian element 
in the festival of Dionysus, based on his opinion that 
Greece has borrowed much from Egypt. In order that 
his ideas should be credited by Hellenists, he must 



2 4 o NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

wait until the progress of Egyptian studies and the ex- 
cavations on Hellenic soil have banished the distrust 
that has so long prevailed in their minds. Perhaps it 
will not be as long as he fears. Crete has arisen at the 
extremity of the JEgean Sea with its brilliant civiliza- 
tion ; it leaves the domain of fable to which modern critics 
relegated it, for the reality of history. As its monuments 
are revealed to us, we see how strongly they betray the 
influence of the East, that of Egypt and Chaldaea. It 
was no empty boast of the Theban Pharaohs of the 
XVIIIth Dynasty when they assumed the title of the 
masters of the Very Green islands; their ships landed 
there, and if the supremacy they exercised was slight 
and unstable, it did not the less exist. 1 There is little likeli- 
hood that the ruins have in store for us documents that 
will give us information concerning the reflux of ideas 
and rites from the Delta to the Archipelago and the 
continent of Europe. But as soon as the material facts 
of the commercial and political relations are demon- 
strated to the Hellenists, spiritual relations will follow 
of themselves, and the traditions of Egyptian colonies 
or of religious borrowings that they have hitherto so 
decidedly put aside, will have credence in their eyes 
as they have long had in ours. 

1 Cf. Chapter jV. 



XXXIII 

A NEW TOMB IN THE VALLEY OF THE THEBAN KINGS 

It will soon be four years since Theodore Davis, 
an American travelling in Egypt, asked and obtained 
permission to explore the valley of the kings at Thebes. 
He undertook the task in no egotistical spirit; he paid 
the workmen and made the excavations, but we retain all 
that he found, except a few duplicate pieces which we 
presented to him by way of souvenir. And it is a great 
merit on his part to be contented with so little, for the 
plan of campaign elaborated there at the beginning of 
the operations by the director-general and by Mr. Carter, 
chief inspector of the Said, results every winter in 
important finds. At the very beginning, in 1903, the 
tomb of Thoutmôsis IV was discovered, with its marvel- 
lous embroideries, blue pottery, pieces of painted wood 
or of statues, his state chariot with the chased seat. In 
1904 Queen Hatshopsouîtou rendered up her three fine 
limestone sarcophagi. It is now the turn of Iouîya, 
father of one of the most famous princesses of the 
XVIIIth Dynasty, Tîyi, wife of Amenôthês III, and 
mother of Amenôthês IV. The former tombs had been 
repeatedly rifled and plundered by a band of negroes 
under the XlXth and XXth Dynasties; the quantity of 
fragments found there which we regard as wealth, are 
merely what those old robbers left behind. The tomb 
just discovered, however, was violated with discretion 
by persons who almost possessed respect for the dead, 
and who were in too great a hurry to despoil it 
16 241 



2 4 2 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

thoroughly ; if they broke open the coffins and took the 
jewels from the mummies, they did not touch the 
equipment. 

The architects did not greatly exert their imaginations 
when drawing up their plans, and the work did not make 
a very big hole in the royal treasury. They chose a site 
sufficiently removed from those reserved by the four 
Thoutmôsis for their resting-places ; it was situated near 
the spot where one of the ravines that furrow the eastern 
slope of the hill joins the central wady. They hollowed 
out a .staircase of about thirty steps which runs at first 
open to the sky, and then plunges into the rock, and 
leads to a narrow door just high enough for a man of 
medium height to enter without knocking his forehead 
against the lintel. It leads scarcely into a chamber, but 
rather into a rectangular cavity, roughly hollowed out in 
the rock, ill-quarried, low-ceilinged, unornamented either 
by sculpture or painting, hardly capable of holding the 
coffins and the rest of the funerary gear. The last of the 
Egyptians to visit it had, in withdrawing, filled up the 
portion of the staircase which lay level with the ground, 
then the water which flows in torrents through the ravine 
on stormy days had carried down to the embankment so 
compact a bed of loose pebbles and sand that the work- 
men's pickaxes had difficulty in breaking it up. Mr. 
Quibell, who had just succeeded Mr. Carter in the 
superintendence of the works, managed to pierce it, and 
had already got at the upper steps when his professional 
duty sending him to show the Temple of Edfou to 
the Duke of Connaught, he was deprived of the pleasure 
of opening the tomb with Mr. Davis. It seemed that 
the thieves, after despoiling the mummy, felt some 
qualms of conscience at carrying off in addition to 
the jewels, certain objects easy of transport, for there 
were found on the steps a scarab in green stone, 
pieces of an alabaster vase, the painted and gilded 



TOMB IN VALLEY OF THEBAN KINGS 243 

yoke of a chariot, a walking-stick with a gilded knob, 
a large roll of illuminated papyrus; a parcel of onions 
and of dried herbs had been carelessly thrown on to 
a bench at the left of the staircase. On February 
1 2th, in the evening, the door appeared half hidden 
under the dust; on the 13th, in the morning, it was 
completely laid open to view, and the wall which 
enclosed it was visible in its full height. The bricks had 
kept the coating of fine clay which the masons had given 
it on the evening of the funeral, and the exact impress of 
the seals placed on it by the guardians of the necropolis, a 
jackal couchant, and underneath three rows of kneeling 
prisoners, their arms bound behind their backs. The 
thieves had destroyed the two or three upper courses in 
order to enter by the opening, and there could be seen 
in confusion at the end a heap of dark objects, relieved 
here and there with gold at points where they caught 
the light. 

Nothing is rarer now in the Theban necropolis than 
virgin tombs; I have only found one in eleven years, that 
of Sannotmou, and it belonged to people of the poorer 
class. The tomb we are considering sheltered persons 
of very high rank, and it was so filled up from floor to 
ceiling that at first sight it seemed untouched; but on 
closer inspection the action of the malefactors became 
evident. The large black and gilded coffin of the upper 
row was yawning open, the panels warped, the boards 
disjointed, the cover fallen on one side, the mummy 
reduced to a bundle of torn rags; but the rest of the 
objects remained as they had been arranged during the 
ceremony of the interment. The space between the top of 
the brick wall and the lintel of the door is narrow enough, 
but there is no slit behind which an archaeologist suspects 
he may find something new or unknown too small for 
him to get through. He undergoes much discomfort, 
but he manages to squeeze through, and once he has set 



2 4 4 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

foot in the chamber seems to have left behind him all the 
centuries that have elapsed since the dead man was alive ; 
the mummy has just descended to the vault, the celebrant 
performs the last rites, the acolytes finish placing the 
furniture and the offerings. Its whole appearance would 
almost lead us to mistake it for that of Maiharpiriou ; 1 
it suggests the epoch of Thoutmôsis IV or Amenôthês 
III, and the first impression is justified by a reading of the 
inscriptions. On a wooden arm-chair there is mention 
of the Princess Sîtamanou, daughter of Amenôthês III, 
then on a phial the cartouche of Amenôthês himself, and 
elsewhere on coffins, boxes, statuettes, vases, with the 
most unexpected variants in the spelling, two names, 
almost famous, those of the lady Touîyou and of her hus- 
band, the hereditary prince, the first among the friends 
of the sovereign, he whom the lord king, the divine 
father made great, loved by his master louîya. Fortune, 
which often betrays us, has this time deigned to shower 
its favours on Mr. Davis; it has led him to the house of 
the father of the queen Tîyi, about whose origin students 
have held so many strange opinions. Many things in 
her funeral trousseau were given her by the members 
of her family, children, sons-in-law, grandchildren ; 
Pharaoh himself must have seen them to decide if they 
were worthy of being offered to a person who stood so 
near him, and our hands in touching them are perhaps 
the first to efface the traces of his. 

The thieves made a clear place near the foot of the 
coffin in order to carry on their depredations more con- 
veniently, and at the south of the chamber the ground is 
visible on a surface of two or three square feet. We know 
both from the texts and the pictured representations that 

1 A tomb not far from this one discovered by M. Loret in 1899. 
Maiharpiriou — the lion on the fields of battle — was the son of a Pharaoh 
of the XVIIIth Dynasty, probably Thoutmôsis III, and of a black 
princess. The complete equipment of his tomb is now in the Cairo 
Museum. 






TOMB IN VALLEY OF THEBAN KINGS 245 

the statues of the double, the mummies, the chests, the 
sarcophagi, all the funerary gear had to be placed on the 
ground itself or on the solid stone; it ought to rest on 
sand, but the tombs to which we have usually had access 
were in such confusion that it was impossible for us 
to determine to what point the prescriptions of the ritual 
had been observed. Here the bed of sand exists as it had 
been prepared by the workmen of the necropolis, and it 
held all the objects. They present an incredible variety, 
and we might say that they multiplied before our eyes 
as our candles lighting the chamber caused them to rise 
up out of the gloom. Two draped, wooden rectangles 
leaned against the wall, probably two of the low frames 
consecrated to Osiris Vegetating, The form of a large 
mummified Osiris was drawn on the stuff, face uncovered, 
arms free, diadem on brow, and was then filled in with 
the seed of barley or corn, which was gently watered 
until the grain began to sprout. When the stalk was a 
few inches high it was laid down flat and the whole 
enveloped in wrappings. It was an allegorical defini- 
tion of the destinies of the soul; man would grow as 
did the buried grain, and from his death arose another 
life as vigorous and fruitful as the first. An arm-chair 
in dark wood, ornamented with reliefs and gilded in- 
scriptions leaned against the wall between the beds, 
respondents worked with gold or silver wire were piled 
up in a corner; the tomb must have contained an extra- 
ordinary amount of goldsmiths' work for the thieves 
to have left so much behind. The statuettes are with- 
out a scratch, the chests are intact, and that the colours 
are dulled is due to the slight veil of dust spread over them 
by the passage of time. They soon become bright again 
when it is carefully wiped off. The northern part is 
less piled up with rubbish, and the wealth is equally 
great : we found the arm-chair inscribed with the name 
of Sîtamanou, little figures, boxes for respondents^ 



246 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

perfume-pots, all sorts of provisions, jars full of essences 
for the ritual, weapons. At the end against the wall 
was a chariot with its pole, its axle, its wheels, its har- 
ness, and, if it resists the action of the air, the Cairo 
museum will at last possess what exists nowhere else, 
a whole chariot ready for the horses to be yoked to it. 

Much time must elapse before we shall know exactly 
what unsuspected marvels the ingenious packing of the 
tomb still hides; the removal of the treasures and the 
methodical inventory are to be begun at once. Messrs. 
Quibell and Weigall, the inspectors of the service, will 
share their task with Malvezzi, Ayrton, and Parabeni, 
who will kindly leave their own excavations to lend us 
a helping hand; they will measure the objects one after 
the other, number them, photograph them, pack them, 
and Mr. Lindon Smith will copy in water-colour those of 
which the colours are in most danger of fading. Mr. 
Davis will take the most fragile on board his dahabieh in 
order to save them from the jolting of a railway journey, 
the others will be put into cases and entrusted to the Said 
express. In three weeks Iouîya will arrive at Cairo with 
all of her trousseau that the thieves of old consented to 
leave her. Objects arranged in museums bear the same 
relation to those that remain in their legitimate places 
as the most skilfully stuffed animal bears to the creature 
who has just died, and whose limbs are still filled with 
the last breaths of life. To remove them from the spot 
where their contemporaries had placed them is almost to 
inflict on them a second death, and to break the bonds 
that the first had respected with the world to which they 
belonged. I should have liked to keep the hypogeum of 
Iouîya just at it was at the moment of its discovery, but 
it would have meant leaving it the prey of evil chances. 
Everything would have conspired to hasten its destruc- 
tion or its spoliation, the indiscreet curiosity of tourists, 
the cupidity of the Arabs, the unscrupulous covetousness 



TOMB IN VALLEY OF THEBAN KINGS 247 

of amateur collectors, and the beasts of the field would 
not be more merciful than men. One of the vases we 
uncorked contained thick oil, another almost liquid 
honey, which still preserved its scent. If it had been left 
without its cover on one of the steps of the staircase, near 
the entrance of the corridor, a marauding wasp, having 
strayed into the Valley of the Kings, would have hovered 
gluttonously round the jar. We should have had to 
send it away by flapping a handkerchief to prevent it 
taking a portion of the honey gathered by ancient bees 
from the flowers of the Theban meadows more than three 
thousand years ago. 



XXXIV 

THE OASI3 OF AMMON 

The Oasis of Ammon was familiar to many of us in 
our childhood. Alexander went there to hold consulta- 
tion with the god, and returned a god himself. Some say- 
two crows, others, two serpents, put him in the right 
road just as he had lost it, and guided him within sight 
of the mystic city. On his arrival, Ammon went to 
salute him, borne in his sarcophagus on the shoulders of 
the priests, and uttered the deceptive speech in the course 
of which he called him his son. He promised him 
dominion over the universe, and proclaimed that victory 
would be true to his flag until the end. The Oasis was 
far off, and Alexander said little of what he saw and 
heard there. The world never knew in detail what hap- 
pened in that corner of the desert; it believed what the 
witnesses of the interview consented to tell, or did not 
believe it, and it did not laugh more than was seemly 
when told that the hero had a god for his father. The 
reputation of Olympias suffered somewhat from the 
revelation, but that would not have made any great 
matter; to have been the object of a divine caprice was 
not without glory, and as Philip was no longer there to 
protest, no one thought of raising a voice on his behalf. 
The oracle benefited by the adventure; it remained the 
fashion for several centuries, and even when it had lost 
prestige with the pious, its name was not effaced from 
the memory of new generations. Quintus Curtius and 
Plutarch aiding, French school-boys continued to take 

interest in it ; in accordance with the syllabuses, pupils of 

248 



THE OASIS OF AMMON 249 

French schools were taught the part it played in the 
history of Alexander. 

They would have been much embarrassed had they 
been asked to point out the exact site, or if the ruins of 
the temple in which Ammon had dwelt still existed. The 
Oasis is not easy of access, and since the oracle of Am- 
mon became dumb has rarely been visited by travellers. 
It would not take long to enumerate the Europeans who 
have been there since the beginning of the nineteenth 
century, and if we put together all the weeks that they 
spent there we should not get a complete year. Stein- 
dorff and his companions 1 stayed there only twenty-one 
days, from December 19, 1899, to January 8, 1900. The 
people there are not hospitable to strangers. They are 
divided into five or six clans, each of about twenty 
families, and have for centuries formed almost a close 
community, having no relations of consequence with the 
outer world. They are divided into two political and 
religious factions, into two çofs, who usually live in a 
state of churlish truce, and who only keep up the relations 
strictly necessary for government and commerce. They 
intermarry but little, yet scarcely a generation passes 
without a civil war, which is fiercely waged for months 
together, and only ceases through general exhaustion. 
The last was in 1896, and itwas one of the most ferocious. 
We are assured that 160 combatants were left on the 
field, and that the losses would have been heavier still 
had not Senoussi sheikhs come from Djarboub and inter- 
vened to bring about peace. Since that time the 
Egyptian police has maintained order, and the Oasis is 
quietly gaining strength for fresh conflicts. Its popula- 
tion is a little under 6,000; as the men outnumber the 
women, there is very little polygamy. They speak a 
corrupted Berber dialect, interspersed with Arab words. 

1 S. Steindorff : Durch die Libysche Wiistezur Amonsoase. Leipzig. 
1904. 



250 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

There is scarcely any trade, and less industry. Caravans 
import tobacco, sugar, powder, arms, a few European 
cotton goods, and a little jewellery at irregular intervals ; 
the rest is made on the spot by the women, or the artisans 
of the bazaar. Dates and olives are the chief wealth 
of the people; not only do they form their food, but 
every year about twelve tons are exported to Egypt and 
Syria. With the produce of the sales they pay the 
tribute, and procure the few luxuries "to be found among 
them. 

It was almost the same in the time of the Pharaonic 
rule. The Theban kings of the XVIIIth or XlXth 
Dynasty were probably the first to take firm possession 
of the Oasis. They installed their god Amonrâ there, 
and built him a chapel, in which he was enthroned, if 
not with all the pomp, at least with all the rites to which 
he was accustomed in his native land. Neighbouring 
Libyan tribes, already partly imbued with Egyptian 
civilization, did not renounce their national religion for 
him, but they frequented his services and did him 
homage. One of his attributes especially struck their 
imagination, the skill with which he foresaw the future 
and unveiled it for those who questioned him according 
to the prescribed ceremonial. His statue spoke in the 
darkness of the sanctuary; it replied to the questions 
asked of it by a movement of the head, and when two 
scrolls, each containing a different solution of the same 
question, were placed in his hands, it kept hold of that 
which it considered to have value, and let the other 
drop. 1 The Libyan divinities were less expert or less 
refined in manner; their believers no longer applied to 
them in serious circumstances, but were accustomed to 
seek the advice of the foreigner. They reverently 
resorted to him from every corner of the desert, and his 
fame soon reaching the coast, was spread among the 
1 Cf. Chapter XVIII. 



THE OASIS OF AMMON 251 

peoples dwelling on the shores of the Mediterranean. 
When the Dorians colonized Cyrene about the middle of 
the seventh century b.c. they soon learned the existence 
of the oracle, and hastened to consult it ; then continental 
Greece, informed of it by colonial Greece, began to send 
embassies to the oracle in difficult conjunctures. From 
the sixth to the fourth century b.c. two African oracles 
divided the honours; each had zealous partisans, who 
quarrelled unceasingly, and belittled the power of the 
rival for the glorification of their own god. The oracle 
of Bouto, in the Delta, was upheld by the Ionians, and 
the Asiatics grouped round Naucratis ; it seemed to pre- 
vail until Egypt was conquered by the Persians. The 
oracle of Ammon prevailed with the Cyreneans, and 
through them with Hellas proper, but it did not attain the 
supremacy until the beginning of the fifth century, when 
the decadence of Naucratis had weakened the element 
which upheld the cause of the gods of Bouto in the 
world. 

The Oasis, enriched by the continually increasing gifts 
of the pilgrims, became an actual state, bound to Egypt 
by ties more or less loose, according to the epoch. It had 
its hereditary princes, whose suzerainty extended, per- 
haps, over some of the smaller neighbouring oases, 
that of Gara, for example. The oldest of them known 
to us is Etearchos — perhaps the Egyptian name 
Teharkou in Greek dress — who lived in the time of 
Herodotus, and narrated very curious things about the 
peoples of the African desert. The inscriptions copied 
by Steindorff reveal the existence less than a century 
after him of three of his successors : Raudîtneb, whose 
son Setertas was the vassal of the Pharaoh Hakoris 
of the XXIVth Dynasty, and lastly Ounamounou, who 
was a dependent of Nectanebo I, of the XXXth 
Dynasty. They found the temples in a bad state, and, 
if they did not entirely rebuild them, they at least 



252 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

restored them, and decorated them with very fair bas- 
reliefs. But it was all new when the Macedonians 
went to Egypt ; the ruins we find there to-day doubtless 
belong to the buildings that Alexander saw when he con- 
sulted the god. They are purely Egyptian in style, with 
no trace of Greek influence. They resemble the small 
Theban temples, with a cell flanked by two secondary 
pieces for the goddess-wife and the god-son; perhaps it 
comprised a hypostyle hall, a pronaos and a pylon, but 
those elements have disappeared, or travellers have been 
unable to find any trace of them. The divinities there 
are those of the Theban Ennead, Amonrâ, his wife, 
Maout, Shou, and Tafnouît with the lioness's head, 
Gabou, the earth, Nouît, the heaven. The formulas 
which cover the walls are borrowed from the oldest 
books in the world, those the text of which is engraved in 
the vaults of the Pyramids, and the composition of which 
had already been long finished when Menés, the first 
king, ascended the throne. The chambers in which we 
read them are those in which funerary worship was rend- 
ered to the prince as to the dead forms of Amonrâ. When 
Alexander dismounted before the door of the sanctuary, 
he found himself in actual Egypt, and the description 
given by historians of his entry is of a purely Egyptian 
ceremony. The divine emblem emerged from his naos to 
receive him, and spoke to him as he was accustomed to 
speak to his Pharaohs : " Come, son of my loins, who 
loves me so that I give thee the royalty of Râ, and the 
royalty of Horus." To these commonplace salutations 
he added the sacramental promises: "I give thee 
valiance, I give thee to hold all countries and all religions 
under thy feet; I give thee to strike all the peoples 
united together with thy arm." The litany may be pro- 
longed at will, and if these are not the terms of the dis- 
course heard by Alexander, they certainly give the sense 
of it; the meaning it pleased him to attribute to them 



THE OASIS OF AMMON 253 

for the realization of his projects of universal power are 
well known. 

I do not know if the excavations will ever permit us 
to determine the exact spot where the conqueror and the 
god so politely contemplated each other face to face. It 
would seem that in a country so cut off from the rest of 
humanity the monuments of the past would be likely 
to be more completely preserved than elsewhere; even 
if whole buildings are no longer to be found, we ought 
to find the pieces of which they were formed scattered 
over the ground. But the inhabitants of Siouah have suc- 
ceeded in almost entirely destroying their temples. They 
have not torn them down in order to make huts of the 
fragments, as is so often the case on the banks of the 
Nile; but they regard them as the work of magicians 
who once ruled the ancient world, and the eagerness 
manifested by Europeans in exploring the ruins con- 
firms them in their belief. The blocks covered with 
strange pictures are not what they seem to be; they 
are so many ingots of pure gold, disguised by the 
virtue of a very ancient spell, and he who knows how 
to remove the spell would grow as rich as he pleased. 
As soon as a piece of a wall or an isolated stone is seen 
sticking out of the ground, and yields a metallic sound 
when knocked, the people of the Oasis break it into 
small pieces in hope of exorcising the spell; although 
they are always disappointed, they are never tired of 
trying again. During the excavations this year, they 
were seen hovering about with their hammers, and how- 
ever carefully they are watched it is to be feared that 
they will soon destroy the pillars and the pieces of walls 
recently brought to light. The spot is too long a 
journey through the desert from Cairo for it to be pro- 
tected in any efficient manner, and the documents it 
conceals are virtually at the mercy of a handful of 
greedy and superstitious savages. 



XXXV 

ON THE REPRODUCTION OF EGYPTIAN BAS-RELIEFS l 

Many artists are inclined to believe that it is easy to 
make good copies of the Egyptian bas-reliefs. The par- 
ticular method of presenting figures of men and animals 
must of course be carefully studied if they are to be 
accurately transcribed, but, taken all together, they 
seem to present simple lines, empty surfaces, cleanly cut 
silhouettes, unsymmetrical and awkward action : it only 
needs a little attention and a vast deal of patience. The 
copyist after making his sketch works it over in the 
details, carefully accentuating all that constitutes the 
special characteristics of Egyptian art in his eyes, the 
eyes and chest full front, the face and torso in profile, 
the arms and legs alike without apparent distinction 
between the right and left, the gait heavy, the gesture 
angular. Most often he is satisfied with the result, and 
is pleased with himself for having grasped the physi- 
ognomy of his model. Some, however, lose that illusion 
as they proceed, and before they have finished perceive 
that, where they thought to make a faithful copy, they 
have only produced a caricature. 

The peculiar properties of the bas-reliefs are soon 
revealed to any one who examines them with close 
attention, and he then almost despairs of ever repro- 
ducing them adequately by ordinary means. The line 
which encircles the bodies with so precise a contour is 

1 Die Mastaba des Gem-ni-kai. Edited, in collaboration with 
A. E. P. Weigall, by Friedrich-Wilhelm von Bissing. Berlin, 1905. 

254 



REPRODUCTION OF BAS-RELIEFS 255 

not stiff and inflexible in its whole length as it appears 
at a first glance, but it undulates, swells out, tapers off, 
sinks down according to the structure of the limbs it 
bounds, and the action that animates them. The flat 
parts it defines contain not only a summary indication 
of the anatomy and of the flesh surfaces, but the place 
of the muscles is marked by such minute excrescences 
and hollows that we marvel how the ancient sculptor 
could produce them with the rude tools at his disposal. It 
required the suppleness of the white limestone of Tourah 
to enable them to work in a relief some ten-thousandth 
part of an inch high, a thing the modern pen, pencil, 
or brush is impotent to transcribe exactly on paper. 
Prisse d'Avennes, in his History of Egyptian Art y has 
sometimes very happily imitated the suppleness and 
elegance of the general form; he almost always sup- 
pressed the work of the chisel between the enveloping 
lines and the slight and transparent shadows which 
resulted from them. Lepsius, or rather Weiden- 
bach who drew for Lepsius, did even less than Prisse 
d'Avennes. By observing and sketching the walls of the 
tombs of Memphis he evolved for himself an Egyptian 
style of agreeable aspect and correct proportions which 
honestly corresponded with the average human and 
animal types most frequently used near the Pyramids. 
He guilelessly employed them through the enormous 
volumes of the Denkmaeler, without paying any heed 
to the innumerable varieties of execution offered by the 
monuments at successive periods of their history, and 
even at the same epoch in different localities. His so- 
called facsimiles, to speak the truth, are merely groups 
of patterns in which the individual characteristics of 
each piece has disappeared. The archaeological detail is 
scrupulously registered, as well as the modifications that 
arise in costume, armament, furniture, domestic or in- 
dustrial implements; but everything connected with 



256 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

artistic detail is wanting, and we cannot distinguish 
from the touch what belongs to the most ancient epochs, 
or to the Said age. It can be easily imagined how this 
has misled students who tried to appreciate Egyptian 
art by what they could learn of it without leaving their 
own rooms, and then set to work to write its history. 
It has spoiled the judgment of two or three generations ; 
they attributed the monotony they found in the repro- 
ductions to the originals, and for half a century Egypt 
was convicted of possessing a fixed art lacking personal 
inspiration or variety of handling. 

Present day Egyptologists have means at their com- 
mand which brings the reality much closer to them. 
Bissing has made use of heliogravure for his reproduc- 
tions of some of the tombs of Sakkarah, and if he found 
the work rather expensive, the faithfulness of the pic- 
tures is so striking that the extra cost is amply repaid. 
I do not mean that it is absolutely perfect, nor that 
fault is not to be found in certain places. The tint 
employed is sometimes rather dark, and the printing-off 
heavy ; here and there the ink has thickened the figures, 
and blurred the contours. Those faults are almost 
inevitable in books that are not exclusively éditions de 
luxe, and intended only for collectors; they are rare in 
the copy I have before me, and do not perhaps exist in 
other copies. In any case, taken as a whole, the volume 
is excellent, and those who look through it will almost 
feel that they have the document itself in front of them. 
They will find not only the general outline of figures 
and objects, but all the most delicate marks of the 
chisel with the play of light and shade due to them. 
Each of the men, and of the animals, perhaps in a 
higher degree, has its peculiar physiognomy which is 
stated in a few rapid strokes. We see in one of the 
pictures tame hyaenas, who are being fattened up 
with food apparently little to their liking : they are 



REPRODUCTION OF BAS-RELIEFS 257 

bound, lying on their backs, their four legs in the 
air; their attitude is always the same, but the manner 
in which they accept their portion differs everywhere. 
Elsewhere ducks and geese undergo a similar trial, 
and they walk about to recover their equilibrium. 
The sculptor well knew the peculiarities of each sex, 
and we can still distinguish his geese and his ganders 
by the carriage of the head or the shape of the body; 
they express their feelings, and their joy at having done 
with the uncomfortable business by wagging the tail, 
by grimaces, undulations of the neck, holding out the 
beak and ruffling the feathers. In every plate we 
find varieties of pose, of figures, of human or animal 
expression that the pencil failed to reproduce, but which 
the sun has fixed on the film that transferred them to 
the copper; and the copper has delivered them to the 
paper just as the stone received them from the hands of 
the skilful workman five thousand years ago. It is 
almost the wall itself which is before us, with its records 
passing before our eyes ; it is all there with the pictures, 
the grain of the limestone, the polishings of the chisel, 
the sculptor's corrections, and also his faults where, 
distracted probably by the conversation of one of his 
companions, he let the chisel slip or gave too hard a 
blow with the hammer. Any one who has been in the 
studio of a modern craftsman and watched him at work, 
will at once discern the hand of the ancient sculptor in 
the heliogravure, as in the stone. 

The superiority of the new method is especially seen 
in the large figures. Bissing has divided over Plates 
XX and XXI the full-length portrait of Kemnikaî. I 
am sorry that the format of the volume did not permit 
him to give the whole figure in one plate, because the 
effect would then have been more striking. But the 
heliogravure, even so divided, gives a totally different 
impression from an ordinary drawing. Kemnikaî is 
17 



258 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

standing, the legs a little apart, the body in repose ; he 
holds his long staff of authority obliquely, the point 
against the ground and the right hand open on the 
knob, while the left hand firmly grasps the centre. He 
looks straight before him at a scene of cultivation which 
is destroyed, but which we can easily reconstruct in 
imagination, ploughing, sowing, harvest, transport and 
threshing of the grain : his wife, a little figure behind 
him, accompanies him, and according to custom puts 
her arm round his leg. Any one who has looked 
through an illustrated book on Egypt knows the motif, 
but what they do not suspect, at least if they have not 
lived in the country, is the manner, delicate and strong 
at the same time, in which the artists of Memphis 
treated it. Bissing's two plates will teach them, if they 
take the trouble to examine them carefully ; the silhouette 
is surrounded with one line drawn on the stone with a 
sureness and also with a freedom of touch that never 
fails for a moment. The old sculptor has imperceptibly 
raised the background all along the line in order to 
accentuate the relief, but it is so subtly done that great 
attention is required to discover it. The figure, al- 
though applied almost flat on the stone, is by that means 
placed in a sort of atmosphere which gives more round- 
ness to the contours than would have been thought 
possible with a relief so low as that of the Egyptians. 
The interior detail presents a combination of sharp and 
modelled lines, almost indiscernible, that facsimiles in 
drawing usually neglect; the shapes of the individual 
elements of the face, the eyes, nose, mouth, chin, are 
brought out by means of sharp edges, but the supple- 
ness of the muscles and flesh is expressed by soft strokes 
running one into the other which correct any hardness 
there may be in the design. A technique, full of both 
strength and delicacy, appears everywhere on the chest, 
arms, and legs, surprising to those who make the ac- 



REPRODUCTION OF BAS-RELIEFS 259 

quaintance of the originals of Egyptian art only after 
being familiar with them in the ordinary collections of 
prints and engravings. 

Bissing intends to make similar reproductions of 
several of the tombs of Sakkarah. When he has 
finished his work archaeologists and historians will owe 
him much ; but artists will owe him more, for he will 
have supplied them with accurate documents in which 
they can study almost as if at first hand the bas-reliefs of 
the tombs, so important a branch of sculpture in the time 
of the Pyramids. The acquisition of complete mastabas 
by the museums, like that installed in the Louvre in 
1904, provided them with a first point of vantage, but 
the mastaba, valuable as it is, did not reveal the wealth 
of motifs, and the variety of workmanship to be found 
in the necropolises of Memphis. If religious dogma 
compelled its contemporaries to decorate their funerary 
chapels in a manner always identical in regard to its 
principal lines, it left them free to combine and develop 
the themes according to taste and to the space to be 
filled. In every generation there were at least a dozen 
independent studios, each with its own teaching, 
methods, and way of handling the subjects. Books like 
that of Bissing and of others who will follow his ex- 
ample, help us to realize those personal traditions. 
Such volumes will aid in removing the prejudice that 
prevents many who are interested in antiquity from 
allowing Egyptian art its just value. 



XXXVI 

THE TREASURE OF TOUKH-EL-GARMOUS 

A donkey beaten by its fellah was trotting past the 
ruins of Toukh-el-Garmous. He hit against a large vase 
buried in the dust and smashed it with the blow. A 
few pieces of gold thrown up from the débris danced 
merrily in the sun. The fellah, seeing them, blessed 
Allah, and dismounted. The ass shook his ears, 
stretched his neck, snorted, and then seeing nothing 
to eat in the neighbourhood, half drowsed, his eye 
dimmed with a distant vision of fresh water, green 
clover, and chopped straw. But the fellah wasted no 
time in idle reverie, and disinterred handfuls of wonder- 
ful things, chased dishes and vases, chafing-dishes, 
censers, necklaces and bracelets, gold and silver coins, 
a complete treasury. He made a rapid calculation that 
by the tariff at which tourists purchased antiquities there 
would be over ;£ 1,200, and he resolved that no one be- 
sides himself should reap the benefit. He distributed 
the objects about his person in the mysterious pockets 
hidden in the folds of the peasants' cloaks, and spurred 
his donkey along the road to the village looking as if 
nothing had happened. The ruins had seemed deserted, 
but the most desolate corners of Egypt are continually 
haunted by prying eyes which nothing escapes. When 
the man entered his house, his right-hand neighbour 
already knew of the find, his left-hand neighbour was 
not ignorant of it, and both claimed their share of the 
prize. A quarrel ensued. The affair was noised abroad, 

260 



TREASURE OF TOUKH-EL-GARMOUS 261 

the local inspector, Mohammed Effendi Châbân, warned 
by the ghafir of the place, carried off half of the jewels ; 
Mr. Carter, inspector-in-chief of the province, seized the 
remainder; and that is how a donkey's kick and the 
quarrel of three fellahs enriched our museum with 
invaluable metal-work. 

The collection falls into two series, one Egyptian 
in conception and execution, the other Greek. The 
Egyptian objects number about twenty, and are mostly 
in silver, and were probably the property of a god or of 
some private individual of wealth. We have not been 
able to make a complete inventory. The metal is so 
much corroded that many of the objects can neither be 
cleaned nor separated. Some of the conglomerations of 
fragments resisted all our attempts at separation, and we 
do not yet know if they represent several pieces or only 
one. Others have been separated, and although en- 
crusted with the oxide in places, it is quite possible to 
distinguish the decoration. It is very rich and of a 
type already familiar to us elsewhere; there are, for 
instance, half-a-dozen deep cups, the bulging part 
decorated with long petals planted in a central rosette, 
like the fine vases discovered at Thmuis thirty years ago 
by Emile Brugsch and exhibited in one of the rooms of 
the Cairo Museum. Ten cups show Egyptian motifs, 
allied here and there to Greek ones; at least once the 
acanthus is joined with the usual blossoms. The com- 
position varies greatly; on some it is lighter and more 
restrained, on others heavier and of a less sure taste. 
It must be admitted, however, that the composition is 
generally admirable, and justifies the reputation the 
Egyptian metal-workers hold among us for their skill, 
chiefly on the faith of reproductions. Nothing is finer than 
two little incense-burners we have been able to restore. 
The lower portion, the altar, is round, fluted lengthways, 
and set on three feet of a lion or on three fore-parts of a 



2Ô2 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

female sphinx. The covers are egg-shaped domes sur- 
mounted by a cock. One of them is divided into two 
series of open flowers alternating with buds ; the upper 
part is ornamented with lotus sepals, and the incense- 
smoke escapes through the openings between the lotuses. 
The cover of the second has two bands, one of winged 
monsters with lions' bodies, the other of grimacing 
masks borrowed from the god Bîsou; above them two 
garlands of flowers surround the dome, skilfully pierced 
to let the smoke escape. 

The Greek series comprises only a few silver pieces, 
but among them is one masterpiece. It is a rhyton, a 
drinking-horn, the point of which is plunged into the 
front part of a griffin's body. The monster's right paw 
is stretched out, the left is bent under him, both wings are 
spread, and the neck is inflated with vigorous action ; the 
boldness of the design is only surpassed by the delicacy 
of its execution. The gold jewellery is of equally fine 
workmanship. The pieces are few in number, but in 
such good preservation, and so clean, that we can appre- 
ciate their delicacy. In general aspect and in the detail 
there is a resemblance to the admirable jewels of the 
fourth century which were discovered in Southern 
Russia; if we did not know their Egyptian origin we 
should be tempted to believe that these specimens came 
from some Crimean tomb. The chain is a supple, solid 
curb, ending in heads of Persian griffins. The two 
pairs of bracelets are each of a different model. In one, 
the circle is a twisted braid of two strands, the extremities 
of which are also formed of two griffins' heads. In the 
other, it is a plain ring ending in two busts of female 
sphinxes, the paws stretched out, the wings folded be- 
hind the head; the hair is dressed in the same way as 
it is on the medals of several queens of the Ptolemy 
family. The fifth bracelet is a serpent, a coiled uraeus 
with head erect and inflated neck, and has no value be- 




A Gold Bracelet from the Find of Toukh el Garmous. 



age 262, 



TREASURE OF TOUKH-EL-GARMOUS 263 

yond the metal ; but the sixth is one of the most beauti- 
ful, if not the most beautiful, piece of its kind which has 
been dug out of the ground these last years. The circle 
is of solid gold, flat on the inner, rounded on the outer 
side. It is ornamented on the front with a large filigree 
knot composed of spirals and flowerets of charming 
fancy. A tiny figure of a naked Eros rises in high 
relief in the middle of the flowers between the folds of 
the knot ; his little wings flutter at each side of his head, 
and he brandishes a patera in his right hand. We 
might try to describe the motif exactly, and make an 
inventory of its elements, but what words can scarcely 
depict, the goldsmith's art has perfectly interpreted. 
Only a photograph enlarged to twice the size of the 
original could reproduce its grace of form and wealth of 
ornament. 

It is evident that the owner of so many different objects 
hid them in an earthen vessel under the ground in order 
to ward off troublesome questions. Did he do it at the 
time of a foreign invasion or of a civil war? All the 
gold coins we found, to the number of 108, and the silver 
ones we have cleaned, are of the time of Ptolemy, son of 
Lagos, and show as date of the interment the last years 
of his reign, or the first years of his successor Ptolemy 
Philadelphus. At that period there were neither in- 
vasions nor rebellions which would have troubled the 
centre of the Delta and have compelled the inhabitants 
hurriedly to conceal their valuables. It would not be 
the same if we went on two or three generations, under 
Ptolemy IV or Ptolemy V, for the revolt of Lycopolis, 
which is referred to in the Rosetta Stone y would have been 
a sufficient reason. But the nature of the objects so 
safely stowed away suggests a different solution. Some 
are personal jewels, bracelets or chains, others are incom- 
plete objects which might have belonged to a private 
house or a temple, some belong to the things used in 



264 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

religious ceremonials, others are amulets or little gold 
images of Egyptian gods; it is neither wholly a god's 
credence-table, nor a private individual's jewel-box, but 
a little of each. In addition, the greater part of the 
coins are as fresh as if they had just come from the mint, 
and cannot have been much in circulation before they 
were buried. Those circumstances lead me to suspect 
that the last owner had perhaps no very authentic rights 
to the possession of the treasure. There was robbery in 
Grecian Egypt as well as in Pharaonic Egypt, and if 
the inhabitants of Thebes felt no remorse in despoiling 
the dead in their cemeteries, Pharaohs included, 1 the 
people of the Delta had no scruples in plundering 
the living. The contents of the jar look to me like 
the booty a professional thief might accumulate in the 
exercise of his calling. After many successful depre- 
dations on the property of his neighbours, he wished to 
hide the wealth, the exhibition of which would have 
compromised him> indeed, he would have acted in pre- 
cisely the same way as the fellah of our day who buries 
his guineas. Five times out of ten the treasure thus 
hidden is lost for the owner's heirs. As he has not more 
confidence in his own people than in strangers, he keeps 
his secret as long as he feels in health, and only reveals 
it to his wife and children when he is on the point of 
death; often when the end comes suddenly, leisure or 
strength is lacking, and he passes away without reveal- 
ing the hiding-place of the treasure. They search for it 
as best they can, but, lacking the necessary information, 
they rarely succeed in finding it. The earth faithfully 
keeps it, and sometimes centuries pass before a chance 
brings it to light. 

It remains for us to clean and to show to advantage 
the objects it has yielded to us. The task will not be 
easy, and in more than one case our efforts will not be 
1 Cf. Chapter XXXIII. 



TREASURE OF TOUKH-EL-GARMOUS 265 

successful. Silver, unlike gold, does not resist time; 
it changes by contact with nitrous dust, and when the 
oxide bites deeply it is all up with it. We know several 
pieces that would perish if we touched them ; we must 
leave them as they are and let them end by destroying 
themselves. The greater part will be better able to bear 
the particular trials they will have to undergo, but I can- 
not affirm that they will have recovered their pristine 
splendour even in one or two years. The general mass, 
however, will be in a sufficiently good condition to enable 
visitors to the museum to judge the quality of the work, 
unhampered in their study by earthy gangues, or thick 
coats of oxide. 



XXXVII 

A NEW TREATISE ON EGYPTIAN MEDICINE 

Medical books are numerous in Egypt. Greek and 
Latin authors affirmed it, and later times have proved the 
truth of their declarations. There are fragments of 
several medical treatises at Berlin, London, Paris, more 
than one complete manuscript at Leipzig, and the Uni- 
versity of California has just acquired another. While 
Professor Reisner was carrying on excavations on its 
behalf, at the expense of Mrs. Hearst, near Deir-Ballas, 
during the early months of 1901, he had the opportunity 
of doing a service to one of the landowners of the village : 
he authorized him to take, without cost, the sebakh, the 
nitrous earth used for manuring the land, from the little 
mounds lately excavated. The fellah, wishing to show 
his gratitude, remembered that two years before he had 
found an earthen pot, and in the pot a large papyrus roll. 
He wrapped it in a fold of his turban, and, having 
brought it to the Americans, accepted the modest price 
they offered him without bargaining, as he would have 
been certain to do had he not been bound by gratitude. 
The papyrus did not long remain useless in its pur- 
chaser's hands; it was unrolled, photographed, repro- 
duced in phototype, and the reproduction, provided with 
a short introduction and a copious index of words used in 
the text, was sold. 1 The method of publication is almost 

1 George A. Reisner : The Hearst Medical Papyrus, hieratic text in 
seventeen facsimile Plates in collotype, with Introduction and Vocabu- 
lary (part of the University of California publications, Egyptian 
Archœology, Vol. i). Leipzig, 1905. 

266 



TREATISE ON EGYPTIAN MEDICINE 267 

the same as that employed by Ebers, and I do not know 
a better. The document is now accessible to Egyptolo- 
gists; it is for them to study it and translate it without 
delay for the benefit of historians of medicine. 

It will be understood that a substance as fragile as 
papyrus is not improved by being jolted for several miles 
in the folds of a turban. The last three pages, which 
were on the outer side, and formed, as it were, the cover 
of the roll, suffered severely during the journey from 
the Arab village to the American camp. Further, the 
manuscript had been torn about the middle by one of 
its ancient owners ; all the first pages are missing, as well 
as a good third of the lines on the first of those preserved 
to us. Only a half of the contents has reached us, but 
the damage is less serious than might at first be 
imagined. It did not contain a continuous treatise on 
fixed points of medicine ; all the way through the chapters 
are arranged almost without method, and are sufficiently 
independent, so that knowledge of one is not indispens- 
able for understanding the others. Instructions for the 
massage of painful places follow recipes for purgatives, 
then come remedies to try in cases of fracture, abscesses 
or inflamed pimples, maladies of the stomach, heart, or 
bladder, wounds on the toes or hands, everywhere inter- 
spersed with prayers and incantations. Diseases, as we 
know, were caused by the anger of a god, or by the pre- 
sence in the suffering limbs of one or more evil beings, 
genii, spectres, ghouls, vampires, spirits of the dead. 
Remedies could cure or mitigate the outward ills, but the 
disease itself could not be cured as long as the evil spirit 
remained an inmate of the body ; only incantations could 
expel it, and the doctor would have been of little use to 
his patients if he had not proved as expert in exorcisms 
as in formulas of pharmacy. The pages that have dis- 
appeared can scarcely have differed greatly from the 
pages saved, and certainly included the same proportion 



268 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

of auxiliary magic as of medicaments. We have pos- 
sibly missed some prescriptions so far unknown, the 
eccentric composition of which would have shown us 
once again the infinite resources of the Egyptian doc- 
tors for relieving their patients. But it is unlikely that 
we have lost any exposition of general theories, which 
would tell us their ideas concerning the human body and 
its constitution, or concerning the nature of the diseases 
which prevailed on the banks of the Nile. 

The writing is of the same type as that of the Ebers 
Papyrus, but it is more rapid, and less well formed; it 
seems to me characteristic of the later rather than of the 
earlier time of the XVIIIth Dynasty. The manuscript 
probably belonged to a doctor established in the small, 
ancient town to which Deir-Ballas has succeeded, but it 
does not contain "the original work of the man who wrote 
it. Like all the medical papyri that have come down to 
us, it is a copy of an older copy, and the composition 
of the text goes back to distant historical epochs. The 
greater number of the diseases and prescriptions are 
already mentioned in the Ebers Papyrus; but the classifi- 
cation often differs, and the composition is not always 
the same. There is a community of sources in the works, 
but the compilers to whom we owe them did not think 
themselves obliged to reproduce servilely the documents 
before them. The analysis of the Ebers Papyrus and of 
the Reisner Papyrus tends to prove that there were, at a 
fairly early period in Egypt, a quantity of aphorisms, or 
of empirical prescriptions, in favour with the priests of 
the temple and with the ordinary people. The elements 
were gradually grouped together, and in the end formed 
repertories of somewhat local interest, which were 
identical, if not in form, at least in matter. Their com- 
position or invention was attributed sometimes to the 
gods, sometimes to the oldest dynasties of kings, and 
that origin gave them universal authority. The reper- 



TREATISE ON EGYPTIAN MEDICINE 269 

tories of different districts were combined, and collections 
like the Berlin Papyrus, the Ebers Papyrus, and the 
Hearst Papyrus, were the result of the juxtaposition. 
They were veritable medical compendiums for the use of 
doctors who added notes of their own here and there. 
One of the owners of the Ebers Papyrus had occasion 
to try several of his most advantageous prescriptions on 
his patients, and when they were successful he wrote 
good in the margin by each, for the instruction of his 
successors and the edification of posterity. 

It is difficult to discover exactly of what the greater 
part of the medicaments consisted. The names of plants, 
minerals, animals, natural or manufactured objects, that 
enter into their composition, can seldom be identified 
with the substances they signify, and in many cases, if 
we could transliterate the Egyptian terms, we are in- 
capable of translating them. When by chance we know 
all the ingredients, the formula generally belongs to the 
category of what we call old wives' remedies. There 
figure in them milk, saliva, urine, excrements, worms, 
insects, horn, gall, the whole contents of popular phar- 
macy. As a matter of fact, the Greek and Roman 
physicians, and the physicians of the Middle Ages, used 
no other, and it would be easy to turn the medley into 
ridicule, but in many cases there was a serious reason for 
the use of the substances, and the prescriptions, which 
seem so grotesque to us, cured the patient. It is cer- 
tainly less disagreeable to apply ammonia, or medica- 
ments made with ammonia, where the Egyptians pre- 
scribed urine, or the excrements of certain animals, but 
the results were the same, and the ammonia imprisoned 
in those repugnant substances acted in exactly the same 
manner as if it had been chemically prepared; it may be 
that, mingled with organic substances, its action was 
less harsh than it is in the case of the pure ammonia of 
our laboratories. At first experiments were made with 



270 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

anything that came to hand, then, in time, what had not 
produced good results was eliminated, and only what 
seemed to have accomplished a cure was retained. The 
strictly empirical selection left a residue of remedies for 
each disease, nearly equal in value, so that they were 
used in turn until one of them produced the desired effect. 
If we examine the ingredients, we find that all contain 
a more or less considerable quantity of some active ele- 
ment that modern physicians often recommend in similar 
cases. At base it was a sole remedy that the Egyptians 
administered, disguised through various vehicles, when 
they desired to try wholly different remedies. Their 
combinations, which put forward the same elements as 
those used by our practitioners, must, in many cases, 
have been equally successful. There, as in so many 
points, the progress of modern science consists rather in 
simplifying the drugs of the ancient pharmacopoeia, and 
in making them less repugnant, than in substituting new 
ones. 

However extraordinary it appears, we should resign 
ourselves to believing that this strange science was seri- 
ous, and that it worked efficaciously. As neither the 
climate of the country nor the conditions of life there 
have changed since the most distant epochs, we can 
easily judge by the diseases that prevail now what were 
those of former ages. Ophthalmia, dysentery, affections 
of the chest and stomach, are all mentioned in Reisner's 
Papyrus, but it is not easy to fit the modern term to the 
ancient one. The doctors have not always perceived the 
unity of the disease under the different accidents by 
which it manifests itself, according to the temperament 
of the patient, and very often individual variations, or 
successive periods of one disease, are regarded as inde- 
pendent maladies. On the other hand, they confuse in 
one concept diseases which our contemporaries have 
learned carefully to separate. Thus they had two or 



TREATISE ON EGYPTIAN MEDICINE 271 

three names where we have only one, or only one where 
we have two or three. We must therefore be content to 
follow their example, and not insist on exactly defining 
the nature of the disease for which they prescribe. 
Reisner has been careful not to venture on such difficult 
ground, and neither in his Introduction nor in his Voca- 
bulary has he risked translating the Egyptian terms by 
precise equivalents in English, or in any other modern 
tongue, and no one will blame him. He could not do 
alone what requires the co-operation of at least two 
persons, an Egyptologist and a physician who is past 
master in the science of the ancients. 



XXXVIII 

THE COW OF DEÎR EL-BAHARÎ 

For about five months there has been nothing talked 
of in Egypt but a marvellous cow, the like of which has 
never before been seen. She is of a rare colour, of per- 
fect purity of form, intelligent expression, graceful, and 
an excellent milker to boot. She was a native of 
Thebes, but has just been brought to Cairo, where she 
has been the rage for six weeks. She is of yellow sand- 
stone, is named Hathor, and is more than 3000 years 
old, a very respectable age even for an Egyptian cow. 

Naville discovered her at Deîr El-Baharî, February 7, 
1906, in the course of the excavations he has directed for 
three years for the Egypt Exploration Fund. The work- 
men had just finished removing the débris from one of the 
mounds which separate the ruined pyramid of Montou- 
hotpou V from the trenches dug by Mariette along the 
mountain, when at two o'clock in the afternoon a heap 
of sand fell down, and revealed a construction of wrought 
stone. Informed by the reis, he went immediately to 
the spot, and saw the beginning of a vault; a cow's head 
was outlined beneath in the gloom, and looked out curi- 
ously through the opening. A few hours' work sufficed 
to bring the monument to view. It was a low construc- 
tion built in a hollow of the rock with slabs of sculptured 
and painted sandstone. The semicircular ceiling did not 
present the usual regular vault with converging key- 
stones and surfaces ; it was composed of a double row of 

bent blocks cut in quarters of a circle and buttressed one 

272 






\.^^'M^^ 




THE COW OF DEÎR EL-BAHARÎ 273 

against the other at their upper end. It was painted dark 
blue, with yellow, five-pointed stars scattered over it to 
represent the sky. The three vertical partitions were 
decorated with religious scenes. At the end Thoutmôsis 
III was praying before the Theban Amon, and on the 
sides, before Hathor, woman and cow. My first impulse 
was to leave it as it was at the place where Naville had 
dug it out, but it would have put too great a temptation 
in the way of dealers in antiquities. Doubtless the cow 
was too heavy for them to have removed as a whole, but 
it would not have been difficult for them to detach the 
head and to carry it off in the night in spite of the vigil- 
ance of the ghafirs, or, indeed, with their complicity. 
There are always unscrupulous collectors ready to pay a 
high price for a stolen object provided they thought it 
had artistic or archaeological value, and with the honest 
brokers of Louxor the certainty of gaining hundreds of 
pounds compensates largely for the petty annoyance of 
paying a few piastres by way of fine, or of undergoing a 
week's imprisonment if they are caught in the act. The 
only efficient way of saving the monument was to send 
it to Cairo. I entrusted the work to M. Baraize, one of 
our engineers, who carried it out extremely well ; in less 
than three weeks the chapel was pulled to pieces, the cow 
packed, and the cases transported by railway. The 
chapel is now rebuilt in one of the rooms of the Cairo 
Museum, but the goddess is not shut up as she was at 
Thebes. She stands at the entrance, the body in the full 
light, the hinder-part slightly under the vault ; she comes 
forth from her house and shows the whole of herself to 
visitors, from the snout to the end of the tail. 

She presents a strange mixture of mystical convention 
and living reality. She is identical with the cows so often 
drawn in the tombs of Memphis or in the temples of 
Thebes. She has a small head, a narrow chest, thin 
shoulders, a long saddle-back, long thin legs, sinewy 
18 



274 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

thighs, prominent haunches, and somewhat slightly- 
developed udders. Her coat is red brown, darker on the 
back, lighter, of a fawn-colour almost becoming white, 
under the belly; it is speckled with black spots, like 
flowers with four petals, which we should consider arti- 
ficial, if there were not animals of Soudanese origin in 
the Egyptian herds of to-day that show similar markings. 
The characteristic features are so precisely accentuated 
that the race is not to be ignored : it is one of the Africans 
recently studied by Lortet, 1 and has nothing in common 
with the Asiatic ox to which our European species are 
allied. As she is no ordinary creature, but a goddess 
of good family, she is adorned with emblems suitable 
to her dignity. A solar disk shines between the horns, 
flanked by two ostrich plumes. To right and left of her 
fore-part a tuft of aquatic plants grow out of the plinth, 
beautiful lotuses, the open flowers and buds of which are 
bent above the back of her neck and support her head- 
dress. Two human figures lean against her. The first 
stands in front of the group, his back against her chest, 
his head under hers. The face is mutilated, but from 
the urseus of the crown and the stiff petticoat which falls 
in a triangle over the knees, we guess the Pharaoh; his 
flesh is black and his hands are extended in an attitude 
of submission, as if avowing himself the humble servant 
of Hathor. The second personage is also a Pharaoh, 
but his flesh is of the natural colour and he wears no 
clothes; kneeling under the animal's belly, he presses 
the teat and eternally drinks the divine milk. If we may 
believe the cartouche engraved between the lotuses, the 
two figures, the black and the red, would be the same 
sovereign, Amenôthês II of the XVIIIth Dynasty. But 
in many cases the testimony of the name is insufficient 
when it is isolated, and here it is weakened by the in- 
scriptions on the walls. We have stated that the chapel 
1 Cf. Chapter XXVIII. 



THE COW OF DEÎR EL-BAHARÎ 275 

was built by Thoutmôsis III ; we see him accompanied 
by his wives and two of his daughters. It would be 
strange if the cow that he twice worships on the bas- 
reliefs was not the one we possess. It is quite likely that 
Amenôthês II inscribed his name over the group which 
belonged to his father. 

The various elements were not arranged according 
to the personal taste of the sculptor; the place of each 
was designed in advance by the exigencies of the religi- 
ous dogma. Hathor, the lady of the heaven, was also, 
by an association of ideas easily justifiable, the queen of 
the dead, and without her aid there was risk of missing 
happiness in the future life. She appeared before the 
souls when escaping from the tomb after the funeral ; 
they took their way towards the west in order to enter 
the other world. Her form on that occasion varied ac- 
cording to the district. In the north the people con- 
ceived her as one of the fine sycamores that grow in the 
sand on the borders of the Libyan desert, green and thick 
from the hidden waters sent by the infiltrations of the 
Nile. The mysterious path that leads to the west 
brought the doubles to its feet; as soon as they appear, 
the divine soul living in the trunk comes wholly or half 
out of it, and offers them water in a vase, and bread on 
a dish. If they accept her gifts, and they can scarcely 
refuse them, they are at once recognized as her vassals, 
and are no more permitted to return to the living, but the 
realms of the world beyond are open to them. In the 
Said, Hathor was a cow. She lived in a green marsh 
situated on the lower slopes of the Libyan mountains; 
each time a double came there she stretched her head 
from between the lotuses and demanded its homage ; when 
it was accorded her, she offered him her teat, the milk 
from which impregnated him with eternal youth. The 
186th chapter of the Book of the Dead, 1 a great favourite 
1 Das Thebanische Todtenbuch, ed. Naville, Vol. i. 






276 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

with pious folk under the Second Theban Empire, initi- 
ates us into that mystery, and the vignette that precedes 
it gives a sketch of the scene as the Egyptians conceived 
it : the yellow or red slopes of the mountains, the tufts 
of aquatic plants, the cow in conference with the defunct. 
The artist who executed our group had only to interpret 
the vignette by means of the material proper to the 
sculptor. He reduced the marsh to two small tufts 
of lotuses, which frame the fore-part of the figure. He 
expressed the two moments of the mystic act by the 
pose of the two royal figures, and by the choice of their 
attributes. The first wears the costume of the Pharaohs, 
and has black flesh, and upright under the animal's 
snout, faces the spectators. Amenôthês II has only just 
declared his oath of allegiance ; he is still, as his colour 
indicates, the slave of death, but the goddess has received 
him as one of her own, and presents him to the whole 
world as her son. That formality accomplished, he slips 
through the lotuses, kneels down, crushes the udder in 
his hands, and puts his lips to it. That is the final rite 
of the adoption. As he swallowed the first draughts of 
milk, life flowed into him, and so the artist has repre- 
sented him naked like a new-born infant, and with flesh 
of a pink colour to denote the living. 

Monuments on the subject of adoption and divine 
nourishment are not as rare as people were pleased to 
say they were at the time of this discovery. The Cairo 
Museum possesses three that have been known for a long 
time. Two of them are mutilated, and only fragments 
remain, but the third, which is devoted to the memory of 
the scribe Psammetichus, is rightly considered one of the 
masterpieces of Said art. It is half life-size, and the 
scribe only figures on it once, in front of the breast. 
The execution is of unimaginable excellence; the artist 
has manipulated the green basalt with as much ease and 
precision as if it had been soft Tourah limestone ; the relief 




The Shrine and Cow in the Museum at Caii 



bage 276. 






THE COW OF DEÎR EL-BAHARÎ 277 

of the body is delicate, the expression of the heads of 
charming gentleness and serenity, and the piece deserves 
all the praise it has received. But it loses very much 
when confronted with that of Amenôthês II. It is of the 
Memphian school, and, like nearly all the products of that 
school, the form has something forced and impersonal. 
Hathor is there an artificial cow, of the type of the half- 
abstract Egyptian cows which, in the eyes of the Memph- 
ians, incarnates the ideal of the terrestrial or divine cow ; 
it is a studio work, the faultless rendering of an ordinary 
pattern by a master craftsman. The new Hathor, on the 
contrary, if conventional in many of the details, is nearer 
nature than her Memphian sister. The royal studios of 
Thebes, whence she came, like all those of Egypt, were 
blindly obedient to the decrees of religion, and were 
forbidden to modify in any way the types formed in the 
course of ages to express visibly the concepts of popular 
tradition or of theology ; but they tried to keep the expres- 
sion as near the living reality as the rites permitted. The 
artist who modelled Hathor has preserved the grouping 
of the parts and the arrangement of the emblems, but it 
is an individual cow, reproduced probably from an 
animal chosen from the sacred herd, and not an imag- 
inary cow set up after a former model. Take away in 
imagination — and it will not be very difficult — the mytho- 
logical apparatus with which the artist was compelled to 
surround her, the high head-dress, the tufts of lotus, the 
two figures of Pharaoh, and what remains is a good 
motherly creature, gentle, strong, vigorous, real. Look 
at the healthy leanness of the flanks, and at the delicate 
head ; the nostrils palpitate under the breath that inflates 
them, the cheeks tremble, the eyes look into the distance 
before them with a dreamy, honest expression. Neither 
Greece nor Rome has produced anything like it; we 
must go to the great sculptors of animals of our own 
day to find an equally realistic piece of work. 



XXXIX 

THE TEMPLES OF THE SUN IN ARCHAIC EGYPT 

More than forty years ago E. de Rougé noticed a 
strange hieroglyph in the inscriptions of the Memphian 
age, a truncated pyramid surmounted by an obelisk : a 
solar disk accompanied it, which sometimes seemed to 
be balanced on the point of the obelisk, but more often 
was more safely placed by one of its sides. The group 
designated a temple of the Sun consecrated by the reign- 
ing Pharaoh in his royal city. Exalted personages 
boasted of holding the priesthood there, but is it to be 
believed that the artist reproduced the figure of the 
sanctuary with scrupulous exactitude? and that there 
really were truncated pyramids with obelisks coming out 
of them near the ordinary pyramids ? or was it the 
artificial union of elements dissociated in reality ? and did 
the obelisk stand in front of its piece of pyramid instead 
of on it? One winter's day in 1898 when Bissing was 
showing Dorpfeld the necropolis of Abousir the idea 
came to him that an excavation made deep down through 
one of the Tells which border the plain might furnish a 
solution of the problem. He could not carry on the 
work on the ground as well as the work in the study im- 
posed on him by his collaboration in our General Cata- 
logue. So he gave the money, and entrusted the execu- 
tion to some of his fellow-countrymen, Schaefer, 
Thiersch, Rubensohn, and Borchardt. It meant three 
campaigns between 1898 and 1901, and then, as he had 
undertaken the expenses of the excavations, he was 

equally prepared to undertake those of the printing. 

278 





tu 



^9 . 3 



§ 



- 4t 



% 



THE TEMPLES OF THE SUN 279 

The first volume has appeared : it contains the history 
of the discovery, the shifting of the ruins, the discus- 
sion on the facts brought to light, and the various 
attempts at restoration j 1 it is edited by Borchardt, who 
is an architect by profession, and no one of us was better 
equipped by his special studies to treat the technical 
questions which arose in the course of the excavation. 

And first, we must state once again that the engravers 
have faithfully copied the objects they perceived around 
them : the obelisk was on the pyramid and not by its 
side. The Temple of Abousir was built on a platform of 
dried bricks, which protected it from inundations, and 
which reached to the first portions of the desert. It 
consisted of a rectangular court, the great axis of which 
runs from east to west, and the four sides of which are 
enclosed by a thick brick wall. The pyramid which 
partly covered the western half of the surface thus deter- 
mined was not a classical pyramid like those of Gizeh, 
but a solid block with its outer sides very near the per- 
pendicular, similar to those of the pyramid of Meydoum. 
It measures about 108 feet at the top by 138 at the base; 
three of its sides are bare, without decoration or open- 
ings; on the fourth and south side a door gave access 
to the staircase which leads to the platform. There the 
obelisk rises, or rather the brick facsimile of an im- 
mense stone raised in form of a curtailed obelisk : it 
was about in feet high. The enclosure in front of the 
two superimposed masses was bordered with chambers 
in which provisions were stored, and in which the officiat- 
ing priests lived with the material required for the 
services. At the western extremity, near the foot of the 
pyramid, an immense alabaster table for the votive 
offerings spread over the ground in a sort of small square 
courtyard, enclosed by low walls; the libations were 

1 Das Rê-Heiligthum des Kœnigs Ne-woser-rê (Rathures). Edited 
by W. von Bissing. Vol. i. Der Bau, by L. Borchardt. Berlin, 1905. 



28o NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

poured there, and the viands, bread, vegetables, and 
fruits which formed the material of the daily offering 
were heaped up on it. The entrance door opened on to 
the middle of the east front. This is only a very sum- 
mary description : plans and drawings are necessary for 
all who would understand the disposition of the parts in 
detail. What I have said is sufficient to prove how 
greatly the edifice differs from the temples to which the 
ruins of Theban Egypt have accustomed us. The Chal- 
daean Ziggourat presents something of the same appear- 
ance, and if we desire an analogy in the modern world 
we may point to the mosques of Touloun or of Hakem, 
with their minarets and their courtyards surrounded by 
arcades; in both cases, however, the resemblance is re- 
mote, and it is wiser not to push the comparison too far. 
A slope enclosed between two parapets formed com- 
munication with the royal city. Pharaoh could pass 
from his palace to the temple at any hour without having 
more than a furlong to travel. The god, so the inscrip- 
tions inform us, was Râ, the living Sun, the primitive 
ancestor of the sovereigns of Egypt, the shining disk 
that they hastened to rejoin after their death, and on 
whose boat they ventured into the darkness of the night. 
The obelisk served for sanctuary and idol at the same 
time, and the pyramid formed a plinth of dimensions 
suitable to its size. We are so accustomed to consider 
the Egyptian gods as beings of flesh and blood, with the 
body of a man or an animal, that when we find one of 
them in the guise of an inanimate object, a stone or a 
tree, we receive a shock of surprise. We cannot doubt, 
however, that here the obelisk was the god himself, and 
the obelisk, in its turn, appeared to be the culminating 
point of the unhewn stone worshipped in very ancient 
temples. The old religions of Egypt before the time of 
the Pharaohs are as if hidden from our eyes by the 
excrescences of the more matured rites derived from 



THE TEMPLES OF THE SUN 281 

them in the course of ages, and it is no easy matter for 
us to unravel their meaning and semblance in those 
earlier times. The obelisks placed in pairs at the doors 
of the Theban temples express among other ideas the 
concepts of generative power and fertility, which had 
belonged to the raised stones from which they partly 
emanated. They, in their turn, had acquired those 
virtues for having formerly represented the shining sun, 
but by what means had the souls of the ancients come 
to see any similitude between two objects so dissimilar 
as a block of unhewn stone and a globe of fire ? It was 
not accurately known under the Vth Dynasty when king 
Naousirrîya built the temple of Abousir, and new dogmas 
had gradually grown over the old ones and supplanted 
them. It was not only the stone-sun that was wor- 
shipped in its temple, it was the sun-star independent of 
the stone, the master of heaven and earth, who vanished 
in the evening to rise again anew in the morning, and 
with whom the Pharaoh was associated in its triumphal 
progress. 

Can we be more exact and state what was the particular 
nature of the sun worshipped here ? Yes, we can, thanks 
to an unexpected discovery made by Borchardt outside 
the temple along the south façade. He found there a 
heap of small pieces of what seemed part of a wall, bent, 
curved downwards, raised up, crossed athwart each other, 
and it required no small ingenuity to distinguish the 
parts of an enormous boat. And, strange as it may 
seem, the Memphian architects had constructed a boat 
of bricks, about ninety-six feet long, and Borchardt was 
right in recognizing it as the image of one of the Boats 
of the Sun. Râ, sailing on the celestial Nile required a 
change of vessel at least twice during the twenty-four 
hours; fn the morning, in leaving the night, he sailed 
aboard the Manazît, in the evening he was transported 
on to the Samaktît. Borchardt, knowing the rules of 



282 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

divine etiquette, as we all do, sought a second similar 
boat on the other side of the temple, and not finding it 
was a little disappointed. Afterwards he asked himself 
whether the construction represented the Manazît or the 
Samaktît, but he did not venture to decide the question 
he had himself propounded. I think he might have done 
so without rashness. The temple is situated on the left 
bank of the Nile, the one where the sun sets. When the 
god reached there after finishing his day's course it was 
time to leave the morning boat and embark on that of 
the evening. Need it be doubted that the little brick 
construction was the Samaktît, the evening boat, which 
awaited Râ? It results then, I think, that the temple 
was consecrated more particularly to the setting sun, 
and there were edifices built on the same plan in the 
Memphian necropolis by the Pharaohs of the Vth and 
Vlth Dynasties. We shall not be astonished if we 
remember that their royal towns were always in the 
neighbourhood of their funerary pyramids; from the 
terraces of their palaces they could see the triangular 
outline of the tomb in which they would ultimately rest. 
Sons of Râ, and, like him, destined by the mystery of 
their origin to vanish into the depths of the West, it was 
natural that they should consecrate the principal temples 
of their earthly residence to Râ, their father, and to Râ, 
dying or dead, already master of the West. 

Once again Egypt is revealed to us as the land of the 
improbable. Familiar as we were with the paradoxical 
turn of her thoughts and actions, could we have believed 
her capable of constructing so rapid and light a thing 
as a boat in heavy bricks, and anchoring it motionless in 
the sand of the desert? But even there she shows her- 
self consistent, and with pitiless logic develops a principle 
she had put forth in very ancient times. The clear 
intuition she then had of the unceasing destruction of 
beings and things led her by reaction to seek means of 



THE TEMPLES OF THE SUN 283 

escaping annihilation. She dried and then mummified 
the bodies, she replaced the perishable offerings of 
meat or bread by offerings in wood or stone; in order 
to sustain his soul she attributed to the dead multiple 
bodies of granite or limestone that slaves like their 
masters served and fed with alabaster geese and loaves ! 
Why, then, should she not assign the god imperish- 
able boats of brick instead of boats of acacia wood that 
a very few centuries would reduce to dust? It was 
not the only advantage to be derived. Pharaoh dead, 
his town was quickly depopulated, and soon only the 
families vowed to the worship remained; next, for lack 
of resources, the worship would stop or only be cele- 
brated at long intervals. The material wore out, and 
the wooden boat kept in the sanctuary for Râ's use fell 
to pieces; then the brick boat took its place and con- 
tinued its functions as long as a piece of the wall lasted. 
That is one of the things, and not one of the least, that 
we have learned from the excavations at Abousir : 
Bissing will teach us more in his second volume. 



XL 

CONCERNING A RECENT DISCOVERY OF EGYPTIAN 
GOLDSMITHS' WORK 

Representations of valuable metal- work and jewellery- 
are often found on the Egyptian bas-reliefs in the ruined 
temples, as well as in the tombs. Judged by our modern 
standard, the vases, perhaps, seem of odd shape, and 
show signs of doubtful taste in a certain superfluity of 
curve. But it must be acknowledged that the majority 
are pure in outline, and the decorative designs almost 
faultless in their grace and simplicity. The bulging part 
of the vases is adorned with flowers, or geometrical 
designs, while bands of plants, fish, birds, animals, and 
human figures in various attitudes, encircle the neck. 
The handles are of divers shapes, each unique in its 
way, and always beautiful. One is formed by a large 
lotus flower, which grows out of the side, and clings 
with drooping head to the lip of "the vase; another, by 
the figures of two Asiatics, or negroes, who lean back on 
either side, supporting the weight of the projecting rim ; 
another, by a fox, which climbs up the top of the vase in 
order to escape the pursuit of invisible hounds ; another, 
by a goat standing on its hind-legs, its head bent over 
the rim, as if inhaling with dilated nostrils the fumes 
of the wine within. Inscriptions are engraved above 
the objects, with details of their dimensions, which are 
often extensive, and of the metals, gold, silver, electro, 
and bronze, either enamelled or plain. The weight 
of each article is considerable, and the value of the 



EGYPTIAN GOLDSMITHS' WORK 285 

material alone, as a rule, equals, if it does not exceed, 
the artistic value of the object. 

Such fine vases are now rarely to be found. The 
crucible has devoured almost all the treasures of the 
past, and the little that has escaped destruction only 
faintly shadows forth the splendid pieces that must have 
once existed. We have the flat cups from Thoutiî at the 
Louvre, the copper-gilt goblets from the tomb of Rakh- 
mirîya, the silver vessels at Cairo, the discovery at Tmaî- 
el-Amdîd, and also the treasure found at Toukh-el- 
Garmous, which probably belongs to the Said and Ptole- 
maic period, and appears to have come under Greek 
influence. 1 

In the Tells of Bubastis articles were found which date 
back to the latter part of the XlXth Dynasty. They 
were first brought to light by workmen employed in re- 
pairing the railroad. The site is rich in antiquities, and, 
when properly worked, produces marvellous results. One 
man turned up, one after the other, two vases in perfect 
preservation, one gold, the other silver, and also a quan- 
tity of silver jewellery, which he endeavoured to hide 
under the embankment with the aid of one of his com- 
rades. They carried it away during the night, and sold 
it to a dealer, who immediately informed one of his corre- 
spondents at Cairo. We should most certainly have 
lost sight of the treasure but for the promptness of one 
of our watchmen, who, witnessing the theft, but lacking 
power to intervene, hastened with the information to the 
local inspector, Mohammed Effendi Châbân, and to Mr. 
Edgar, inspector-in-chief of the Delta. The booty was 
taken from the receiver of stolen goods, and a law-suit 
followed, which resulted in our favour. The possession 
of the vases was granted to us, and the two workmen 
sentenced to a term of imprisonment. 

At the same time, Edgar continued investigations at 
1 Cf. Chapter XXXVI. 



286 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

the site of discovery, and soon more objects were re- 
vealed. It seems that they were formerly encased in a 
large clay jar baked hard by the sun, which had either 
cracked under the accumulated weight of the débris, or 
been smashed by a workman's pickaxe. The contents 
were widely scattered, and only those that had been at the 
bottom remained, jammed together by outside pressure 
into a compact casing of metal and hardened earth. In 
spite of very great care, the treasure could not be pre- 
served in its entirety, and some pieces came into the 
hands of an antiquary at Cairo, a gold strainer, the 
neck of a finely chased gold vase, the fragments of three 
or four silver dishes, and five or six polished silver 
vases. Fortunately, the greater part fell to our share, 
and is now exhibited in our cases : two gold pots and 
a gold cup in perfect preservation, half-a-dozen polished 
silver bowls broken into small pieces, of which only two 
were in a fit condition to be repaired, a silver pitcher, 
with gold handle and ornamentation, two beautiful gold 
and lapis-lazuli bracelets, two gold necklaces set with 
precious stones, a bar of solid silver, a few chased and 
twisted silver leaves, probably detached from some object 
destroyed, a few silver earrings and bracelets, and a 
whole shopful of jewellery of inferior workmanship, 
having nothing in common with that of the two gold 
bracelets and the metal- work. 

The collection was, in fact, composed of the mixed 
products of many different periods. The silver bracelets 
and earrings were of the type found in the last years of 
the Roman Empire, or in the first of the Arabian domina- 
tion. The earrings are plain rings, slightly oval in 
shape, with a pendant of grain seeds strung together at 
the bottom in threes or fours, or else placed in alternate 
ones and twos. The bracelets consist of a round bar, 
cut straight and ornamented at either end by coarsely 
incised checker-work, and finished by two parallel lines. 



EGYPTIAN GOLDSMITHS' WORK 287 

In contrast to these, the gold and lapis-lazuli bracelets 
bear the title of Ramses II, while the gold cups and 
some of the goblets belonged either to Queen Taouosrit, 
great-granddaughter of Ramses II, or to officers of her 
household. The articles on which no inscription was to 
be found resembled those so closely, that they doubtless 
belonged to the same period, and probably came from 
the same workshop. 

Twenty centuries, more or less, elapse between the two 
series, and it would be in vain to look for the causes 
which brought them together, if the circumstances of their 
discovery did not furnish us with a solution of the pro- 
blem. The ancient Egyptian goldsmith, like his brother 
of earlier times, supplied himself with stores of jewels 
and vases, picked up in the ruined villages by fellahs 
in search of sebakh. They were bought by weight, 
and, while a few of the best-preserved specimens were 
spared for future sale if the opportunity occurred, the 
rest were broken up, and the pieces utilized in a form 
more likely to meet the needs of current demand. It is 
evident that this treasure, recently thrown by chance 
across our path, formed part of the stock belonging to 
a goldsmith in a small town. The vases and the gold 
jewellery must have been procured from the fellahs for 
the purpose of selling them to some collector of gold 
plate, but he had already broken up and melted down 
the silver dishes and vases in order to recast them into 
earrings and bracelets. Judging by these specimens, the 
goldsmith was not remarkably skilled in his profession, 
and his customers decidedly not of exacting dispositions. 
Perhaps he lived in a quarter occupied by unpretentious 
people, who did not indulge in elaborate ornaments, or, 
more probably, Bubastis was already a decaying town, 
abandoned by the bulk of its wealthy population. The 
goldsmith was probably killed, and his house destroyed, 
in one of the wars which shed the blood of Egypt at the 



288 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

commencement of the Arabian conquest. The shop, 
with its treasures, was hidden beneath the subsidence of 
the crumbling walls, and remained from that day until 
this, inviolate and undisturbed. 

The bracelets belonging to Ramses II are certainly 
marvels of technique, but we possess superior specimens 
in our museum among the collections from Thebes and 
Dahchour. The skill of the Egyptian goldsmith has 
been revealed to us by such innumerable examples that 
it no longer succeeds in rousing our astonishment. All 
that is really novel to us in the Bubastis collection is 
what it has to teach us concerning the metal-work of the 
age of the Ramses. 

Only a short time ago, the question was still debated 
if the infinite variety of vases depicted on the monuments 
were of authentic origin, and if many of them had existed 
anywhere except in the imagination of the artists com- 
missioned to decorate the temples or tombs. It seemed 
almost impossible that such prolific invention and inge- 
nuity of design could have been realized in metal at so 
early a date. It is now no longer doubted that all the 
varieties portrayed were actually in existence. Draw- 
ings, and many of them, would be required if I could 
hope to demonstrate the remarkable combinations of 
delicacy and strength "to be found in these gold vases; 
words by themselves are powerless to give any idea of 
the reality. I must, however, try to describe, as briefly 
as possible, the silver vase which is considered the most 
valuable specimen in the collection. It does not measure, 
perhaps, more than nine inches in height, and its shape 
is one of the most familiar. I do not know anything 
better to compare it with than an ordinary kettle of 
medium size, without spout or cover. It is made of solid 
silver, which long interment has covered with a coating 
of earth and bluish oxide ; and, unluckily, it was broken 
on one side by a workman's axe at the moment of dis- 



, 



EGYPTIAN GOLDSMITHS' WORK 289 

covery. The bowl is separated from the neck by a hori- 
zontal line of hieroglyphics, expressing messages of 
cheer to the owner's double for a joyous existence in this 
world and the next. The smooth surface is relieved by 
an embossed design, which gives free rein to the play of 
light and shadow. The rim of the neck has a garniture 
of light gold, and below are four bands of human figures, 
flowers, and animals, much of the detail of which is 
obscured by dirt and oxide. Such features, however, 
are by no means unique, and the chief novelty lies in 
the handle, which was designed by the sculptor in a most 
artistic manner. A goat, attracted by the fumes which 
rose from the liquid within, had climbed the rise of the 
vase, and, driven by an impulse of greediness, stands on 
her hind-legs, with her head and fore-feet resting on the 
gold rim. The action, cautious and fearless at the same 
time, the extension of the spine and hind-quarters, and 
the greedy expression of the head and muzzle, are re- 
markable for their fidelity to nature, and show an accu- 
racy of execution equal to the power of invention. 
Seldom has a master craftsman worked in gold with a 
more certain hand. It is a work for all time. 

Moreover, it is typically Egyptian, without any trace 
of foreign influence. For some years we have been 
anxious to discover how much Egypt owed to the 
contact of neighbouring countries. The Chaldseans, 
the Assyrians, the tribes of Asia Minor, the Greeks, each 
predominated in their turn, and it seems more than pos- 
sible that Egypt, torn between their rival claims, might 
have lost all traces of her originality. As a matter of 
fact, things happened in the ancient world much as they 
do to-day. Nations exchanged their artistic inspirations, 
their methods of labour, and their industrial products, 
and, guided by the hands of chance, each imposed his 
ways upon the others during several generations. The 
countries of the old East, each in their turn, felt the 
19 



2QO NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

influence of Chaldasa, of Egypt, of Mycenae, of Assyria, 
and each left traces of those diverse modes, in greater or 
less proportion, according to the vitality of their pecu- 
liar genius. Like her contemporaries, Egypt underwent 
those influences, but with the power of absorption native 
to her, she neutralized the effect by a speedy process of 
assimilation and elimination. Ramses III, after con- 
tinual siege of the Syrian fortresses, desired to have one 
built on the banks of the Nile, and the Pavilion at 
Medinet-Habou was designed on the same lines. His 
experiment does not, however, seem to have modified the 
tendencies of the national architecture, and his example 
produced no further imitations. That which is true in 
a great art like architecture is not less apparent in indus- 
trial arts, such as jewellery or metal-work. The spoil 
brought home from many distant expeditions contained 
thousands of specimens of a workmanship rare and novel 
on the banks of the Nile. The Egyptians copied those 
works, and drew inspiration from them, but as soon as 
the first interest was evaporated they returned to the 
traditional models. The few decorative motifs that en- 
dured conformed to the customs of native art, and, before 
a couple of generations had passed away, they could not 
be distinguished from those of purely Egyptian design. 



XLI 

THE TOMB OF QUEEN TÎYI 

Two years ago, in the Valley of the Kings at Thebes, 
Theodore Davis found a family of mummies lying peace- 
fully at rest, surrounded by their funerary equipment. 
They were the father and mother of Queen Tîyi. 1 This 
year he forced an entrance into the tomb of the queen 
herself. It is situated at the corner of the ravine lead- 
ing to Setouî I. The site is completely hidden by layers 
of gravel and loose stones, and there is nothing to indi- 
cate the presence of a tomb. Mr. Davis, however, still 
faithful to his principle of leaving no corner unexplored, 
no matter how discouraging in aspect, determined to 
pursue his investigations, and good fortune again 
rewarded the inquiring spirit which presides over his re- 
searches. After some days of hard work, the regular 
rectangle of a pit was discernible upon the soil, then two 
or three steps appeared, followed by a staircase open to 
the sky, a door, a narrow passage, and a wall of rock- 
work and beaten earth. The seals affixed by the guar- 
dians, more than thirty centuries before, were still intact 
on the lime-wash. They were broken on the 6th of 
January, and, that obstacle removed, Mr. Davis threw 
himself with renewed energy against a loosely piled 
barrier of ashlars. Two panels of gilded wood, 

1 Cf. Chapter XXXIII. The end of the present chapter has been 
rewritten in order to embody the results of Dr. Elliot Smith's researches, 
and the conjectures which they call forth. 

291 



2 9 2 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

tarnished and worm-eaten, lay stretched across the 
entrance; he would probably have broken them in 
moving them. He preferred to avoid them, and to creep 
down by the wall on the right, with his back to the roof, 
his knees, and the front of his body, towards the angles 
of the stones. When he reached the bottom, he found 
that a fall of earth must have occurred at the moment of 
the last obsequies; the outermost portions of the débris , 
falling into the chamber, filled it almost to the centre 
of the vault. 

A wire connected with the generating station that 
supplied electric light to the royal syringes, had been 
brought into the tomb, and, at the first ray that shone 
forth, reflections of sparkling gold responded in every 
direction. Mr. Davis might have thought himself 
transported to one of the marvellous treasure caves of 
the Arabian Nights. Gold shone on the ground, gold 
on the walls, gold in the furthest corner where the coffin 
leant up against the side, gold bright and polished as 
if it had just come freshly beaten from the goldsmith's 
hands, gold half-veiled by, and striving to free itself 
from, the dust of time. It seemed as if all the gold of 
ancient Egypt glittered and gleamed in that narrow 
space. The two native workmen who accompanied 
Mr. Davis, to render service in case of need, could 
scarcely believe their eyes. They soon whispered a 
couple of words to their comrades, and the news, flying 
from mouth to mouth, speedily crossed the mountains 
which divide Bibân-el-molouk from Deîr El-Baharî. It 
increased in magnitude as it spread over the desert from 
Assassif to Gournah, and from Gournah to Louxor. The 
ingots of gold multiplied, the urns overflowed with 
heavy coins, and the plaques and the vases, the arms, 
and the massive statues had reached such alarming 
numbers by nightfall, that it was necessary to give notice 
to the police to prevent danger of an assault. 



THE TOMB OF QUEEN TÎY1 293 

But looked at closely the result was sufficiently 
mediocre. The coffin, which had appeared at first sight 
to be a gold shell inlaid with enamel and precious stones, 
proved on further investigation to be only covered with 
gold-leaf, and the so-called enamels turned out to be 
nothing more than coloured pebbles and paste of tinted 
glass. The sledge on which the mummy had been 
carried, although made as usual of wood, and coated 
with stucco, was decorated with some fine bas-reliefs, 
and a thin layer of gold-leaf. It had been disconnected 
for introduction into the tomb, and the panels and sup- 
ports carelessly deposited on the first clear space avail- 
able, the boards in the centre of "the vault, the supports 
propped against the wall. Separated thus, they pre- 
sented an extensive glittering surface, but the metal had 
actually very little value. The object was, however, 
unique in its kind, and would have made an interesting 
addition to our museum if we had succeeded in trans- 
porting it as it was, and in setting it up again there. 
Unfortunately, the paste with which the gold-leaf was 
attached to the stucco, and the stucco to the wood, had 
evaporated, and the portions only held together from 
force of habit. The moment they came in contact with 
the outer air they were dislodged, and the decorations, 
coming away in layers, crumbled into dust before the 
very eyes of the artist who was copying them. Less 
than a week after their discovery the panels were bare, 
with the exception of those left undisturbed since the 
day of the burial. 

A picture was represented on one of the panels which 
might have been borrowed from the tombs at El- 
Amarna. King Khouniatonou and his mother Tîyi are 
standing in adoration before their god. A solar disk 
is suspended above the altar, and shoots forth in all 
directions rays armed with open hands, some of which 
play among the offerings, while others hold out the cross 



294 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

of life to the king and queen. The inscription states 
that Khouniatonou had built this sledge for his mother, 
Queen Tîyi, and we should have been assured that the 
human remains scattered on the ground close by were 
those of the queen, if a legend engraved on another 
panel had not attributed the possession to the king; had 
we strayed into the king's tomb unawares? However, 
the lines of hieroglyphics traced on the tomb contained 
the cartouche of the queen, and on a cursory examin- 
ation the mummy certainly appeared to be that of a 
woman. It was somewhat scantily swathed in two or 
three wrappings of linen, fine in texture but very worn. 
According to the usual custom they had chosen the 
oldest garments in the wardrobe in which to dress the 
corpse, and in order to atone in some way for this 
excessive thrift, had concluded the toilet of the corpse 
by binding round it a score or so of gold bands in the 
form of a clumsy sheath. Poverty might be discern- 
ible underneath, but above it was luxury incarnate. The 
mummy had not resisted the slow decay of time, and 
was nothing more than a residue of fibrous bones and 
disconnected limbs, to which a little dried flesh still 
adhered in places. The skull was enclosed in a casing 
of gold, in the front of which the outline of the royal 
uraeus appeared to project. On further investigation, 
however, it was proved to be nothing more than gold- 
leaf cut in the form of a vulture with outspread wings, 
and bearing in its claws the seal of eternity. It was the 
head-dress worn by the queen-mothers, but the em- 
balmers, in fitting the body into the coffin, had care- 
lessly adjusted it in a reverse position, with the beak 
to the nape, and the tail to the face of the mummy. 
The features had suffered comparatively little, and in 
spite of the flattening of the nose, might still be clearly 
distinguished. All the statues and bas-reliefs of the 
queen attribute to her a prominent mouth and an 




* !!9 ^ '• 'if -f »\' 



Zàâ I..;.* .^ -, nnnïlkiiii 



Queen Tiyi. 



page 294. 



THE TOMB OF QUEEN TÎYI 295 

enormous chin. She had inherited those features from 
her mother, Queen Touîyou : a visit to the museum at 
Cairo sufficiently proves the fact. That she had also 
transmitted these features to her son Khouniatonou was 
proved beyond doubt by the corpse lying at our feet. 
The comparison of his profile with that of the woman 
represented in the panels guaranteed that he sprang 
from the same branch. The type is frequently found 
among the wandering tribes between the Nile and the 
Red Sea. If we may judge by appearances we should 
be justified in supposing that the queen could claim 
descent, on the maternal side at least, from the ancient 
Bicharis. 

Thieves would certainly not have failed to carry away 
the gold-leaf, and the mere fact that it still remained in 
the tomb formed an incontestable proof that it had not 
been violated. But what had become of the funerary 
equipment which would have corresponded to so much 
personal wealth ? In her parents' tomb, two years ago, 
varied possessions were found, arm-chairs, jewel-chests, 
sandals, statuettes, models of perfume-pots, beds, 
bolsters, and bundles of dried provisions; a collection 
numerous enough to fill a whole room in cur museum. 
Neither pictures nor inscriptions were to be found on 
their walls, but all the necessaries of life which would 
enable them to exist in comfort in the other world were 
there in profusion. The queen's tomb was as bare as 
their own. The partitions were warped and roughly 
washed with lime, the niche hollowed out awry on the 
right side, the ceiling cracked and crumbling, and on 
the ground was the ritual layer of sand. Several earthen 
pots were scattered about, two or three pretty alabaster 
horns were placed behind the head, and a dozen amu- 
lets of various sorts between the panels. Altogether 
nearly a hundred articles of slight value were gathered 
together. Some of them were gifts from Amenôthês III, 



2 9 6 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

and had been used on the queen's toilet table : a mala- 
chite kohol bottle, cracked and without the neck, a phial 
of polished hematite, and a sort of goblet in green breccia. 
No longer of any use to the living, they were consigned 
to the companionship of the dead. This was quite in 
accordance with the usual Egyptian custom of temper- 
ing necessary economy with the unbounded extravagance 
demanded by true piety. After that, no one will be 
surprised to learn that the rest of the objects consisted 
of microscopic models of furniture and domestic utensils. 
Linen-chests in green enamel two or three inches long, 
miniature boomerangs, knives, mallets, and cups, helped 
to form a collection of doll's furniture, both amusing and 
puerile, which provided the doubled with the equivalent 
of their earthly possessions. It made no appreciable 
difference to the dead, and certainly was less expensive 
for the living. The four canopic urns were placed to- 
gether in an alcove on the west, and were made of 
alabaster and each surmounted by a woman's head, 
which was immediately recognized as a portrait of the 
queen — or possibly of the king — not aged as she was at 
her death, but in the full vigour of life. She was repre- 
sented with a heavy wig, and without the royal uraeus 
of gilded bronze which she generally wore on the 
forehead. One of them had a broken nose, crushed 
probably in some scrimmage. They were evidently the 
work of a master, and gave the impression of an excellent 
likeness to the original ; the face was long and spare in 
outline, the eyes slanting slightly towards the temple, 
the cheeks thin, and the nose straight and narrow. The 
mouth was firm and the chin determined in form, while 
the expression of the whole face was obstinate and 
almost cruel. They were certainly marvellous speci- 
mens of sculpture, and if they are authentic portraits of 
the queen, we can easily realize her strong influence over 
the good-natured Amenôthês III, and understand how 



THE TOMB OF QUEEN TÎYI 297 

the daughter of a poor priest became queen of all 
Egypt. 

The contrast is so strong between her position and the 
sparsity of her burial trousseau, that we are compelled 
to wonder if Mr. Davis has really discovered the original 
tomb. I, personally, had my doubts the moment I went 
down. She died before her son, and the splendour of 
her coffin shows that she received the pomp and cere- 
mony due to the mother of a reigning monarch. It is 
probable that she had at Thebes, or possibly at El- 
Amarna, a tomb worthy of her rank. Ten years after 
her death, when reaction triumphed and the second or 
third successor of Khouniatonou restored the worship 
of Amon, it had been necessary to move the mummy 
beyond the reach of the hatred of the Theban priests. 
It had been taken away secretly on the sledge used at 
the original ceremony, with the image of the accursed 
king carefully effaced from the surface. The four canopic 
urns, which ensured the perpetuity of the double, were 
not forgotten. A few trifling objects were also carried 
away, but the bulk of the equipment was left in the tomb 
she then abandoned. The removal, rapidly effected 
without knowledge of the people, was probably care- 
lessly conducted. We are certain that a mistake may 
have been made, and the remains of some other 
member of the family confounded with those of the 
queen. Dr. Elliot Smith made a careful examination 
of the skull in our museum, and came to the conclusion 
it was that of a young man of not more than five-and- 
twenty. It could not be Khouniatonou, as he died at a 
more mature age, but it might possibly have been one 
of his sons-in-law, probably he who reigned for a few 
months under the title of Sâanakhouîtou. We cannot 
answer for the truth of this hypothesis, but the facts 
observed by Mr. Davis on his entrance into the tomb 
testify that the Egyptians who conducted the ceremony 



298 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

were evidently under the impression they were burying 
a queen, and most certainly the Queen Tîyi. They 
placed a woman's head-dress on her head, arranged the 
canopic urns — hers or those of the king ? — in the niche, 
and pushed the coffin back into a corner. They 
scattered the toilet articles and miniature possessions 
on the sand, and closed up the passage with a pile of 
ashlars. When the last portions of the sledge were 
brought in, the entrance had already become so narrow 
that a false step had knocked down some of the 
stones into the vault. They did not trouble to rectify 
the mischief, but left the panels lying on the top of the 
pile. Then they walled up the door and filled in the 
pit. The hiding-place had been so happily chosen that 
Queen Tîyi, or her involuntary impersonator, was left 
undisturbed for more than three thousand years. 






XLII 

THE PURPOSE OF THE WOODEN TOYS FOUND IN 
EGYPTIAN TOMBS 

The excavations carried on for nearly four years at 
Sakkarah by the Service des Antiquités have not been 
much talked about. It is well known that with the 
method employed the proceedings are slow in execution, 
and yield, at first, but indifferent results. At any district 
under process of investigation, whether at Ramesseum, 
Karnak, or Edfou, we do not limit our aspirations merely 
to digging sundry holes in the earth, in the hope that 
chance may reveal some historic document or specimen 
for our museum. We desire, on the contrary, to ex- 
amine thoroughly the sites of our operations, to protect 
them from any return of falling débris, to consolidate 
them as far as possible, and to make them accessible to 
the public. It is also desired by means of wise restric- 
tions to ensure a lasting preservation for the monuments 
that have been revealed to us, so that when we have 
fully rejoiced over their discovery, they may be exposed 
for centuries to the admiration, or at least to the curiosity 
of future generations. 

In spite of the thick sand-bed found on the east side 
of the plain between the Greek Serapeum and the Pyra- 
mid of Teti, certain indications inclined us to suspect 
the presence of the tomb of some Heracleopolitan king. 
The prospect of possibly bringing to light the relics of 
a Dynasty so far almost unknown, decided us to concen- 
trate our efforts on that end. After ten months of cart- 
ing away of rubbish and of unprofitable excavations, our 

299 



300 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

perseverance was rewarded at the place we expected. 
Quibell, inspector-in-chief of the district, was present 
at the time of the discovery of the relics and saw them 
brought to the light of day; they were the remains of 
Greek, Roman, Copt, and Byzantine sepulchres, rifled 
by ancient robbers and ransacked by Arabs in search of 
treasure, but representing, nevertheless, a remarkable 
collection of mummies and inscriptions. 

The tomb of Maroukerês was found there, and the 
officers of his court had grouped their tombs round his. 
While waiting for the construction of a passage leading 
to the king's tomb, we examined the tombs of his 
courtiers, and judging from their appearance he must 
have been a poverty-stricken and most ill-paying master. 
Two of the best-provided tombs were situated against an 
enormous mastaba in white stone of imposing style, 
which, bearing the seal of an earlier date, was evidently 
not of their original property ; it had been appropriated 
to their uses regardless of the curses supposed to 
descend on the violators of sepulchres. The rest of the 
court were contented with a simple pit, and a narrow 
vault without pictures or legends, and walls bare of any 
decoration except a stela on the false door engraved 
with their names and titles and the usual inscriptions. 
The only luxury perceptible, if luxury it could be called, 
was to be found on the mummies' coffins, or in the burial 
outfits. Although the mummies wore as usual the painted 
mask, reported to have been moulded on the features of 
the living, the wrappings were carelessly bound and 
made of coarse linen, torn and much stained. The body 
lay generally on the left side, with the head and neck 
fitted into the stone or wooden pillow, and the sandals, 
walking-stick, and weapons of war placed alongside the 
back or thighs. The coffin was rectangular in shape, 
and made of wood from Syria or Caramania, and inno- 
cent of inscription on the outer side. On the top was the 



WOODEN TOYS IN EGYPTIAN TOMBS 301 

door with two open eyes through which the double is 
supposed to observe the exterior world. The surface was 
covered with figures or religious inscriptions, the objects 
belonging to the burial outfit were drawn on it in their 
ritual order, and long orations were traced there with 
black ink in running hieroglyphics. 

Some centuries before, under the reign of the kings 
who built the great pyramids, few inscriptions were to 
be found in the vault near the sarcophagus. All the 
pictures of domestic and agricultural life, the instances 
of sacrifice and the enumerations of offerings together 
with the prayers, were reserved for the chapel where the 
ancestor received his descendants, and the priests of his 
creed. Later, however, the rulers of the Vth and Vlth 
Dynasties, disliking the bareness of their chamber, had 
introduced, sparsely at first, and afterwards with ostenta- 
tious profusion, chapters or even whole books, which were 
to ensure, while the owner read them, a future of ever- 
lasting happiness. The custom became general among 
the nobles, and then penetrated to the middle classes, 
and to many kinds of persons in whom the desire for a 
future existence was not less active than among the 
wealthy, but whose circumstances forbade the building 
of a tomb decorated with pictures and prayers. All their 
supplications had to be represented on the coffin, which 
was covered with incantations. The personages figur- 
ing on the bas-reliefs were transposed into dolls of 
painted wood, and grouped on the lid of the coffin, they 
acted the scenes that had been represented on the walls 
of more ancient tombs. 

The toys found by Quibell among the Heracleo- 
politan remains are, if not the prettiest imaginable, some 
of the quaintest and most varied. If we do not look too 
closely, the case in which they are exhibited would not 
disgrace the window of a toy-shop on Christmas Eve. 
Unfortunately, on closer inspection, it could be seen that 



302 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

they had been almost entirely demolished by the white 
ant, formerly found at Sakkarah. The inside of some of 
the pieces had been so eaten away, that they crumbled 
into dust at the slightest touch, others were mere 
fragments, while the few that remain intact owe their 
good appearance to some preservative with which they 
have been saturated. I cannot vouch for their dura- 
bility, but as long as they last they will not fail to give 
pleasure to our visitors, to adults even more than to 
children. One of the most interesting represents a 
middle-class kitchen of fifty centuries ago. It is shut 
off from the street by a low wall with a rustic gate near 
the corner. Square in area, it is divided into almost 
equal portions. A little yard is in front, and the shed 
is open so that what is going on inside is exposed to 
view. The roof is flat and forms a terrace; it is sup- 
ported by two wooden columns with the capitals in the 
form of a lotus bud. The shed is arranged as a store- 
house, with the stoves and recesses at the back, and some 
large jars placed here and there. In the front are several 
receptacles for corn, barley, oil, wine, and water. Three 
men are busy in the yard killing an ox. The beast lies 
on its side, and while one man cuts its throat, the other 
holds a bowl to catch the blood. By the side of the 
butchers, and right in the doorway, a cook squats on the 
floor roasting a goose over a brazier. He fans the flames 
with one hand and turns the bird on the spit with the 
other. 

It is a festive occasion, but we do not assist at the 
banquet, we are only present at the concert, which always 
followed the feast. The master, in miniature, is seen 
seated on a sort of throne, and a little in front of him a 
girl with correct draperies sits on a chair at his right. 
On each side two harpists are playing, and three female 
musicians squat in front of the group singing and clap- 
ping their hands. The dancing girls needed to complete 



WOODEN TOYS IN EGYPTIAN TOMBS 303 

the programme are doubtless to be found in some neigh- 
bouring tomb. Our hero had to be content with a simple 
vocal and instrumental concert. While he " spends a 
happy day," his servants are seen toiling in his service. 
Joiners are sawing beams to shape into furniture and 
planing the panels for a wooden box. Potters model 
his household utensils and bake them in the furnace. A 
procession of yellow-skinned women file past, flanked 
on each side by a small, dark-coloured boy, bearing the 
products of their master's eternal domains. Two boats 
are equipped, and wait his pleasure to go out on the river. 
One has the mast stepped and a sail hoisted ready to 
run against the stream with the light north wind. The 
other carried lowered sails, as if ready to go with the 
current, and three rowers are stationed on either side. 
They are most delightful toys, for which our children 
would be willing to exchange their whole collection of tin 
soldiers and india-rubber animals. 

For the dead, however, they were not meant to serve 
the purpose of playthings. I do not know if Kanouni 
and others of his companions, whose property we have 
appropriated, ever wondered in their youth what would 
be their fate after death when they lay alone in their 
coffins in the midst of their miniature possessions. If 
the rites celebrated over the corpse did not possess the 
power attributed to them by religion their life beyond the 
grave would be intense darkness and endless night, the 
dense, heavy western darkness in which we turn from 
side to side in half-conscious sleep. Were they actually 
sovereigns ? Could the way in which they would act be 
imagined? The mummy was taken down to the vault 
and placed with his face to the east in the coffin at the 
end of the chamber. The lid was sealed to the murmur 
of sacred words. The boats, the peasants bearing offer- 
ings, tradesmen, the musicians, the slaves, the house- 
hold stand in a crowd around. The entrance is then 



304 NEW LIGHT ON ANCIENT EGYPT 

barricaded with a wall that no living hand will again 
disturb. The workmen return to the surface, and the 
echo of their voices grows fainter, and then dies away. 
A rumbling sound is heard, the crash of the stones 
and sand as they fall into the pit. A few moments 
more and the " soul " will lie buried under the weight 
of 120 to 1 60 feet of débris and be lost in the silence of 
the tomb. Is it for ever? Will the miracles of which 
the priests have so often spoken come to pass? The 
believer never doubts that light will burn in answer to 
his prayer, and that life will be perpetuated beyond 
the tomb. Human beings and inanimate things would 
grow to their accustomed size. The pitchers and chests 
would be filled. The workmen would hurry to their 
labour, the ox would continue to fall under the butcher's 
knife, and the goose be carefully basted, and roasted to 
a turn. Action once started could never cease. By 
virtue of incantations each act would be indefinitely re- 
newed, the ox and the goose would live again under the 
servants' care, the supply of fresh water, oils, and 
delicately-flavoured wines would never fail, neither would 
the song of the harpist nor the wiles of the favourite 
slave. 

If these are only material joys, and if it seems that in 
their preparations for future happiness the Egyptians 
might have imagined pleasures of a more ideal character, 
it must be remembered that the political constitution of 
their country made the owners of these magic dolls in 
their lifetime whether noble, government official, mer- 
chant or soldier, subject to those who were wealthier or 
more powerful than themselves. Their ideal on earth 
was to possess a home, land, slaves, and concubines, for 
whom they were indebted to none but themselves. The 
tomb with its little painted dolls procured the Egyptians 
a paradise in which their dreams were realized. 

It was within the reach of the most humble. The 



WOODEN TOYS IN EGYPTIAN TOMBS 305 

works need not come from the hand of a great artist, 
four pieces of painted wood simulated a house suitable 
enough for the purpose, and the figures only resembled 
the cheîk-el-beled at a long distance. During the early- 
periods of Egyptian civilization, the right to a future 
life could only be claimed by the extremely wealthy. 
The lives of many women, children, slaves, and animals 
had to be sacrificed to accompany the double into the other 
world. The descendants, overcome with grief, but chary 
of the cost, substituted for these expensive victims 
statues representing each of them at his craft, the woman 
grinding the corn, the baker at his kneading-trough, the 
cellarer sealing up his wine jars, the mourner beating 
his forehead and cutting his face. Although this sub- 
stitution assured a great reduction of expense, few of the 
nobles were in a position to afford the fees demanded by 
the sculptor, and a further concession was granted by the 
application of bas-reliefs and painted panels on the walls 
of the chapel, and thus the future life was made possible 
for a larger number of persons. The cost of execution 
was still heavy, however, and in order that the privilege 
might be further extended, the painted scenes descended 
from the walls, and were made in common wood, in 
small size, at a small cost. It is obvious that the more 
wealthy or more cautious would use both methods. 
Many mastabas and hypogeums have their bas-reliefs in 
the chapel and their dolls in the vault. If any harm hap- 
pened to the first, the others might escape destruction 
and continue to serve the master. For centuries, how- 
ever, the majority kept to the dolls, and owed to them 
the hope and consolation of their old age. Economic 
evolution here determined religious evolution. The 
desire to escape annihilation after death lowered the 
price of the future life, and created a cheap immortality. 



20 



INDEX 



ABDASHIRTA, 6 

Abel, M., 2 

Abousir, 21 1, 212, 283 

Abousir, necropolis of, 278 

Abousir, Temple of, 279, 281 

Abraham, 169 

Abydos, 29, 30, 31, 41, 70, 99, 

122, 125, 126, 205, 208 
Academy of Inscriptions, 40 
Accho, 6, 47 
Achaeans, the, 51 
Achaemenidae, 85 
Acropolis, the Susian, 7, 10 
Adad, 149 
Adonaï, 120 
Adonis, 65 

iEgean Sea, 51, 55, 62, 240 
Agrippa, the (of French sorcerers), 

119 
Ahhotpou, Queen, 83 
Ahmasis, 170, 172 
Ahmôsis, Princess, 80, 83 
Aï, Prince, 68, 72 
Alasia, kings of, 3 
Alexander the Great, 10, 120, 165, 

175, 248, 249, 252 
Alexandria, 84, 87, 88, 99, 215 
Amami, 15, 16, 20 
Amasis, 85 
Amélineau, 125 
Amenemhaît I, 99 
Amenemhaît III, 74 
Amenôphis, 191 
Amenôphis, the potter, 229 
Amenôthês, 191 
Amenôthês I, 83 
Amenôthês II, 274, 275, 276, 277 
Amenôthês III, 3, 4, 65, 67, 71, 

73, 81, 92, 182, 189, 195, 222, 

223, 225, 241, 244, 295, 296 
Amenôthês IV, 2, 3, 6, 49, 64, 65, 

67, 73, 74, 241 
Amenôthês, son of Hapouî, 182,222 



Amenôthês or Amenôphis, son of 
Paapis, 191, 192, 193, 194, 195 

Amentît, 25 

Ammon, oasis of, 248-253 

Ammon, oracle of, 251 

Ammon, the god, 248, 249 

Amon, 30, 32, 38, 65, 72, 76, 77, 
79, 82, 85, 92, 100, 119, 144, 149, 
152, 185, 189,193,194,213,215, 
216, 217, 218, 219, 220, 273, 297 

Amonmosou, 151, 152, 153 

Amonrâ, 47, 64, 80, 146, 219, 250, 
252 

Amorrhea, 42 

Amorrheans, the, 94 

Anastasi, 228 

Anatiou, 76 

Anou, the, 206 

Anthestêria, 236, 237, 238, 239 

Anthestêrion, 236, 237, 239 

Antinoë, 106, 107 

Antinous, 103-108 

Antistius Asiaticus, 102 

Antony, 84 

Antouf V, 99, 100 

Anubis, 25, 119, 152, 184, 238 

Aphroditêspolis the Little, 29 

3i 
Apion, 175 

Apis, 173, 174, 206, 209, 210, 213 
Apollo, 135 

Apouî, the prophet, 228-233 
Apour, 45 
Apourîou, the, 94 
Apries, 170, 172, 174 
Arabia, 98, 160 
Arabian Nights, the, 158, 187 
Arabs, the, 10, 14, 40 
Arad, 47 

Archipelago, the, 48, 62, 240 
Argolis, 56 
Arsaphes, 40 
Asarhaddon, 149 



307 



, 



3o8 


INDEX 


Ascalon, 47, 93, 94, 96 




Black Sea, the, 48 


Ascalonians, the, 96 




Bocchoris, 170 


Ashirou, 222 




Boêthos, 204 


Asi (Cyprus), 48 




" Book of the Dead," 61, 137-143, 


Asia, 170 




275 


Asia Minor, 55, 62 




Borchardt, 278, 279, 281 


Askalani, 96 




Borêsis, 87 


Assasif, 24, 292 




Bos Afrz'canus, the, 210 


Assi, 18, 19, 20 




Bothor, 172 


Assouan, 12, 13, 219 




Boucolion, the, 237, 239 


Assourbanabal, 149 




Boulak Museum, 20 


Assyria, 8, 10, 42, 5 1, 73, 149, 235, 290 


Bouriant, 12 


Assyrians, the, 135, 172, 234, 


289 


Boursin, 204 


Athôtis, 203 




Bouto, oracle of, 251 


Athribis, 189 




British Museum, 116, 128, 139, 


Athyr, 130, 132, 134 




182, 215 


Atonou, 65, 72, 73 




Brugsch, Emile, 182, 261 


Atouî, 78 




Budge, 2 


Atoumou, 66 




Byblos, 6, 47 


Attica, 56 






Augustus, 84, 88, 89, 90 




Caesar, 81, 87 


Avalis, 77 




Cairo, 246, 272, 273, 285, 286 


Avaris, 191 




Cairo Mission, 23, 26 


Ayrton, 246 




Cairo Museum, 21, 182, 246, 261, 



Baal, 120 

Bab-el- Mandeb, 55, 77 
Babylon, 2, 7, 44, 171 
Babylon, kings of, 3, 4 
Babylonia, 8, 11 
Bacchis, 209, 213 
Bakhtan, 147 
Ballas, 122 
Baraize, M., 273 
Barberini obelisk, 103 
Bastît, 36, 213 
Bedouins, the, 98, 125, 231 
Beni-Hassan, 153 
Berber dialect, 249 
Berbers, the, 17 
Berenicia, 102 
Berlin, 266 
Berosus, 234 
Berytes, 6 
Bezold, 2 

Bibân-el-Molouk, 292 
Bible, the, 169, 171 
Bicharis, the, 295 
Birch, 107 
Bîsou, 18, 262 

Bissing, Friedrich Wilhelm von, 
256, 257, 258, 259, 278, 283 



273, 276 
Caius Fulvius Quietus, 102 
California, University of, 266 
Caligula, 97 

Cambyses, 171, 172, 173, 174, 175 
Campus Martius, the, 107 
Canaan, 6, 42, 93 
Caramania, 300 
Carter, Mr., 241, 242, 261 
Carthage, 62, 120 
Carthaginians, the, 48 
Castrum Puellarum, 47 
Celeus, 57 
Chabas, 94 
Chaldaea, 8, 44, 45, 5 1> 73, 95> 1 16, 

149, 202, 204, 240, 290 
Chaldasans, the, 135, 234, 289 
Champollion, 103, 142, 167 
" Chanson de Roland," 168 
Charlemagne, 152 
Cheîkh-abd-el Gournah, 24, 25 
Cheîkh-el-beled, 178, 305 
Cheops, 37, 122, 126, 153, 170, 

171, 205 
Chephrên, 37, 122, 170, 178, 205 
China, 99 

Christian Apologists, the, 53 
Cicero, language of, 104 






INDEX 



309 



Cilicia, 42 

Cleopatra, 81, 84, 86, 87 

Cneius, 84, 87 

Coelo-Syria, 6 

Colossi of Memnon, the, 189 

Connaught, Duke of, 242 

Copt monks, 24 

Coptos, 70, 87, 97-102 

Copts, the, 40, 171 

Cora, 57, 60 

Crete, 48, 240 

Cyprus, 48, 51, 55, 120 

Cyrene, 251 

Cyreneans, the, 251 

Cyrus, 11 

Dahchour, 288 

Damas, 94 

Damascus, 6, 44, 47 

Danga, 18, 19, 20 

Daraou, 151 

Darius, 1 1 

Dar-risi, 15 

Dasdes, Lake of, 200, 201 

Davis, Theodore, 241, 242, 244, 

246, 291, 292, 297 
Deir-Ballas, 266, 268 
Deîr El-Baharî, 22, 35, 40, 49, 75, 

79» 8 3, 99» 146, 272, 292 
Deir el Medineh, 193 
Demeter, 54, 56, 57, 60, 238 
De Morgan, 12 
Denderah, 41, 176, 178, 180 
Denon, 89 
Dêrr, 14 
Desaix, 89 
Didoufhor, 191 
Dieulafoy, M. and Mme., 1, 6, 7, 

8, 10, 11 
Dimaskou (Damascus), 47 
Diocletian, 97, 99 
Dion Cassius, 88 
Dionysus, 234, 235, 236, 237, 238, 

. 2 39 
Diospolis the Great, 87 
Disk of the Sun, 65, 66, 68, 72 
Djarboub, 249 
Dolikhê, 47 
Domitian, 102 
Dorians, the, 251 
Dorpfeld, 278 
Doudou, tomb of, 49 



Dour-Banat, 47 
Duguesclin, 139 
Dujardin, M., 6 

Ebers, 267, 268, 269 

Ecole des Hautes Etudes ; 228 

Edfou, 41, 150, 299 

Edfou, Temple of, 242 

Edgar, Mr., 285 

Egypt Exploration Fund, 33, 272 

Elam, 8 

El-Amarna, 1, 2, 5, 49, 64, 66, 70, 

71, 74, 224, 293, 297 
El-Amarna, tombs of, 226 
Elamites, the, 135 
Elephant river, 77 
Elephantine, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 

21, 178 

Eleusinian Mysteries, the, 53-62, 

234 
Eleusis, 54, 57, 61, 237 
El-Kab, 178 
Eloaï, 120 

Ennead, the Theban, 252 
Erman, A., 103, 104, 107, 109, 197, 

200, 201, 217 
Erment, 81, 213 
Eros, 263 
Erythraea, the, 98 
Esneh, 151, 208 
Etearchos, 251 
Ethiopia, 69, 87, 101, 116, 153, 

184, 185, 186, 192, 222 
Euboleus, 57, 59 
Eucles, 59 

Euphrates, 8, 44, 47, 204 
Exodus, Book of, 94, 96, 169, 192 

Fayoum, 40, 74 

Festival Hall (of Osorkon), 38 

Flinders Pétrie, W. M., 64, 67, 69 

70, 72, 74, 92, 96, 97, 100, 102, 

122, 177, 178, 179, 180 
Foucart, P., 54, 56, 62, 238, 239 
France, 151, 202 
Frejus, 84 
Furies, the, 135 

Gabou, 252 

Gaillard, 210 

Gallus, C. Cornelius, 84-90 

Ganouatiou, 72 



3io 



INDEX 



Gara, oasis of, 251 

Gaul, 120 

Gaul, kings of, 172 

Gaza, 6, 47, 94 

Genesis, Book of, 169 

Germany, 202 

Gezer, 93, 94, 96 

Girgeh, 124 

Gizeh, 177, 279 

Gizeh Museum, 178 

Gizeh, pyramids of, 88, 126 

Goodwin, 157 

Goshen, land of, 35 

Gournah, 292 

G ourneh- Mourrai, 24 

Great Oasis, the, 30 

Grébaut, 221 

Greece, 48, 50, 52, 54, 55, "6, 235, 

239, 251, 277 
Greeks, the, 101, 135, 160, 165, 

182, 289 
Griffith, F. LI., 72, 182, 183, 188 
Groff, 117, 121 
Guardafui, Cape, 77 

Hades, domains of, 57, 58, 59, 61, 
105, no, in, 112, 114, 124 

Hades, queen of, 59 

Hadrian, 103, 104, 106, 107 

Hakem, mosques of, 280 

Hakoris, 251 

Halévy, 2 

Hamath, 47 

Hâpounimâît, 125 

Harmakhis, 185 

Harmhabi, 29 

Harris Papyrus, 215, 217, 218, 
220 

Hathor, 177, 193, 213, 272, 273, 
274, 275, 277 

Hatshopsouîtou, Queen, 41, 76, 77, 

79, 81, 145, 241 
Hearst Papyrus, 266, 269 
Hebrews, the, 94, 95, 169, 192 
Hebron, 96 
Heliogabalus, 107 
Heliopolis, 65, 66, 210, 216 
Hellas, Cities of, 7, 55 
Hellenes, the, 52 
Henassieh, 34, 35, 39 
Heracleopolis Magna, 34, 39, 40 
Hermes, 191, 237 



Hermopolis, 64, 71, 73, 79, 105, 

106, 107, 186 
Herodotus, 35, 36, 38, 164, 170, 

171, 188, 212, 214, 251 
Heroôpolis, 35 
Hesiod, 135 
Hierapolis, 102 
Hieroglyphics, pronunciation of, 

163-168 
Hircus mambricus, the, 212 
Hirkhouf, 12, 14, 16, 17, 18, 19, 

20, 21 
Hittites, the, 46, 94, 172 
Homer, 168 
Hophra, 172 
Horou-douni, 125 
Horus, 80, 101, 104, 123, 124, 125, 

157, 194, 201, 204, 206, 225, 238, 

252 
Horus, Eye of, 133 
Horus, son of the Negress, 186, 

187 
Horus, son of Panashi, 186, 187 
Horus-Sît, 125 
Houîya, 68 
Huelsen, 107 

Ialou, 137 

Ianouâmîm, 93, 96 

Ilîm, the, 77 

Imouthes, 191 

India, 98 

Iouîya, 241, 244, 246 

Iran, tableland of, 8 

Iritît, 14, 15, 16 

Ishtar of Arbeles, 149 

Israel, 91, 95, 96 

Israîlou, 93, 95 

Isis, 54, 56, 60, 102, 192, 200, 238 

Italy, 51, 62 

Jacob, 94 

Jaô, 120 

Jerablous, 102 

Jerusalem, 6, 44, 47 

Jesus, 120 

Jezreel, plains of, 96 

Joel, 120 

John, 120 

John of Nikiou, 175 

Joppa, 47, 94 

Joseph, 94, 96, 169, 171 



INDEX 



311 



Josephus, 175 

Judaea, 116 

Judah, mountains of, 96 

Kadesh-Barnea, 96 

Kaîninou, 100 

Kanouni, 303 

Karchemis, 47 

Karnak, Temple of, 30, 64, 79, 80, 

92, 146, 189, 193, 194, 299 
Kasr-es-Sayad, 178 
Kemnikaî, 257 
Keneh, 99 
Keramîke, 87 
Khabakhel) 120 
Khaloupou-Alep, 47 
Khamhaît, 71 
Khâmoîs, 182, 190 
Kharou, 93 
Khartoum, 21 
Kha-sakhmoui, 125, 126 
Khâtis, the, 6, 91, 93 
Khnoumou, 229 
Khoîak, 130, 132, 135 
Khonsou, Temple of, 146, 147, 

193 
Khontamentît, 61 
Khopri, 66 

Khouît-Atonou, 66, 71 
Khouniatonou, 66, 67, 69, 72, 226, 

293, 294, 295, 297 
Kihak, month of, 238 
Knouriphariza, 120 
Kom-Ombo, 208 
Kous, 99 

Lamartine, 167 
Lange, H. O., 228 
Lauth, 228 

Lazarus, parable of, 188 
Legrain, 189 
Leipzig, 266 
Lepsius, 63, 255 
Leyden Museum, 116, 228 
Libya, 44 

Libyan desert, 16, 17, 151, 206, 275 
Libyan mountains, 30, 222, 275 
Libyans, the, 14, 92, 231, 250 
Limnae, sanctuary of, 237 
London, 266 

Lortet, Dr., 209, 2 10, 2 1 1 , 2 1 2, 2 1 4, 
274 



Louvre, the, 6, 178, 259, 285 
Louxor, 41, 81, 99, 118, 222, 273, 

292 
Lycopolis, 263 
Lyons, Captain, 84 

Macedonians, the, 85, 98 

Macrian, 102 

Mageddo, 45, 47, 94 

Magna Grsecia, 61 

Maiharpiriou, tomb of, 244 

Mâkhir, 15 

Malao, 77 

Malvezzi, 246 

Manakhphrês Siamon, 185, 186 

Manazît, 281, 282 

Manetho, 191, 192, 203, 234 

Mankhopirriya, 29 

Manou, 124, 125 

Manouna, 91 

Maout, 193, 252 

Marcus Aurelius Beliakôb, 102 

Mariette, 36, 75, 76, 80, 151, 272 

Marirîya, 68 

Marisônkhis, 152 

Maroukerês, tomb of, 300 

Massaouah, 77 

Max Mùller, W., 43, 52, 157 

Mazaîou, 14 

Mazît, 140 

Mechir, 134 

Medes, the, 173 

Medicine, Egyptian, 267-271 

Medinet-Habou, 221, 227, 290 

Mediterranean, the, 48, 51, 80, 
209, 251 

Mehemet Ali, 151 

Mehîtouoskhît, Princess, 183, 185 

Mekhou, 14, 16 

Mellaoni, 63 

Memphis, 2, 25, 34, 66, 70, 7^ 8 4, 
85,91,92,98,153,154,159,178, 
179, 180, 183, 203,209,210,212, 
213, 216, 255, 258, 259, 273 

Memphis, necropolis of, 116 

Mendes, 209 

Menephtah, 91, 92, 95, 96 

Menés, 124, 125, 126, 127, 203, 
252 

Menou, 151 

Meroë, 186 

Metesouphis, 20, 21 



312 



INDEX 



Metesouphis I, 14 

Meydoum, pyramid of, 151, 279 

Miebaïs, 203 

Mikhael, 120 

Mînhotpou, 100 

Mînou, 100, 101 

Mînouhâît, 100, 10 1 

Mitanni, kings of the, 3, 4, J2> 

Mnevis, 209, 210, 213 

Mohammed Effendi Châbân, 261, 

285 
Monkhoumînou, 100 
Montemhaît, Queen, 21 
Montou, 133 
Montouhikhopshouf, hypogeum 

of, 31 
Montouhotpou V, 272 
Morgan, J. de, 122 
Moses, 96 
Mosyllon, 77 
Moundos, J7 
Mount Taurus, 2, 3 
Mycenae, 290 
Mycerinus, 170, 205 

Nakhouîti, tomb of, 28 

Naousirrîya, 281 

Napata, 101, 136 

Naucratis, 251 

Naville, M., 33, 34, 36, 37, 38, 39, 
40, 41, 75, 76, 79, 80, 83, 273 

Naville, Madame, 38 

Nebuchadnezzar, 171, 172, 173, 
174 

Nechao, 170 

Necho, 85 

Nectanebo I, 251 

Neferkeres, 203 

Negadeh, 122, 124, 126 

Negative Confession, the, 142 

Negroes, 231 

Nephthys, 200, 238 

Newbury, W., 221 

Nile, the, 13, 14, 16, 17, 34, 40, 
49, 5i, 55, 56,62,63,73,81,87, 
92, 96, 98, 104, 123, 134, 151, 
155, 158, 170,176, 178,203,205, 
210, 212, 222, 253, 268, 275, 282, 
290, 295 

Nile, the Blue, 219 

Nineveh, 42 

Nineveh, kings of, 3, 149 



Nipour, 44 
Nirab, 47 

Nofirhotpou, 30, 100 
Nofirhotpou, tomb of, 28 
Nouît, 252 
Nubia, 17 
Nubian tribes, 16 

Old Testament, names in the, 6 
Olympias, mother of Alexander 

the Great, 248 
Onias, 35 
Onkhtaouî, 160 
Ophiason, 87 
Orontes, the, 47 
Orphic doctrines, 58, 59, 62 
Osiris, 19, 26, 56, 60, 61, 105, 127, 

137, 140,141, 144, 152, 176,184, 

185, 187, 192, 194,200,213,232, 

234, 236, 238, 245 
Osiris, Council of, 143 
Osorkon II, 38 
Ouagaît, 31 
Ouaouaîtou, the, 14 
Ouaouit, 15 
Ouat, 134 
Ouenephes, 203 
Oulaï, the, 7 
Ounamounou, 251 
Ouni, 15 
Ourbilloum, 204 
Ourima, 47 

Ourousalîm (Jerusalem), 47, 94 
Ousimarês, 184, 185, 187 
Ousiramonou, 100 
Ousirtasen II, 40 
Ouzaît, the, 133, 134 
Oxyrynchus, 117 

Pakhons, 134 

Palermo Museum, 204 

Paleriîio Stone, the, 207 

Palestine, 47, 96 

Panoua, 154 

Paophi, 130, 132, 133, 134, 135 

Parabeni, 246 

Parihou, 78 

Paris, 266 

Parthians, the, 10 

Partô?nokh, 120 

Pellegrini, 204 

Persian architecture, 1 1 



INDEX 



313 



Persians, the, 85, 102, 171, 251 
Petelia, 61 
Phamenôt, 100, 135 
Pharmouti, 133, 134, 135 
Pherôs, tragi-comedy of, 170 
Philae, 84, 88, 89, 103 
Philip of Macedon, 248 
Philistia, 42 
Phoenicia, 42, 47 
Phoenicians, the, 2, 50, 80, 234 
Phtah, 61, 92, 119, 144, 160, 193, 

194 
Phtahshadou, 155 
Pincio Piazza, 107 
Pioupi I, 73 
Pioupi II, 14, 20, 21 
Piriou, 92 
Pithom, 35 
Pius VII, 107 
Plutarch, 58, 248 
Polyp tic of Irminon, 216 
Pomcerium, the, 107 
"Ports of Incense," 76 
Potiphar's wife, 169 
Pouanît, land of, 18, 76, 77, 79, 80, 

98, 146, 206 
Prisse d'Avennes, 63, 255 
Pronaos, 89 

Prophets, Egyptian, 228-233 
Prophets, Hebrew, 232 
Propontis, the, 48 
Prosôpitis, 212 
Psammetichus, 85 
Psammetichus I, 170 
Psammetichus III, 172 
Psammetichus the Scribe, 276 
Ptolemy IV, 263 
Ptolemy V, 263 
Ptolemy Auletes, 86 
Ptolemy Caesarion, 81 
Ptolemy Epiphanes, 86 
Ptolemy Philadelphus, 263 
Ptolemy, son of Lagos, 263 
Pyramids, the, 122, 139, 177, 207, 

252, 255, 259 

Qoceir, 98 

Qodshou, 47, 91 

Ouibell, Mr., 242, 246, 300, 301 

Quintus Curtius, 248 

Râ, 66, 92, 104, 113, 119, 130, 131, 



133, 152, 194, 199,252,280,281, 

282, 283 
Râ-Harmakhis, 155 
Râhotpou, 101 
Raî, 153^ 

Rakhmirîya, 29, 50 
Rakhmirîya, tomb of, 22, 285 
Ramesseum, 299 
Ramses, 85, 86, 91, 94 
Ramses, the, 170, 203, 217, 218, 

219 
Ramses II, 40, 46, 128, 146, 147, 

154, 182, 190, 287, 288 
Ramses III, 215, 216, 218, 219 
Ramses IV, 215 
Ras-Banas, 98 
Ras-el-Fîl, 77 
Ras-Hafoun, 77 
Raudîtneb, 251 
Red Sea, 16, 18, 35, 40, 77, 80,98, 

102, 169, 178, 295 
Reisner, Professor, 266, 268, 270, 

271 
Renouf, Sir Peter Le Page, 139, 

140 
Rhampsinitus, 170, 188 
Rib-Adda, 6 

Romans, the, 86, 89, 98, 101, 135 
Rome, 62, 87, 103, 106, 107, 277 
Rosetta Stone, the, 263 
Rougé, E. de, 278 
Rubensohn, 278 
Russia, 262 

Sâanakhouîtou, 297 

Sabaoth, 120 

Safkhîtâboui, 79 

Saft-el-Hineh, 35 

Sahourî, 154, 170, 200 

Said, the, 63, 84, 85, 87, 131, 151, 

178, 181,211,241,256, 275,285 
Sais, 85 
Saites, the, 170 
Sakkarah, 20, 21, 177, 178, 205, 

208, 256, 259, 299, 301 
Saktît, 140 
Salt Lakes, the, 35 
Samaktît, 281, 282 
Samankhkerîya, 72 
Sannotmou, tomb of, 243 
Sanofroui, 206 
Sanouo, 172 



314 



INDEX 



Sanouosrît (Ousirtasen) II, 74 

Saouakîn, 77 

Sardinia, 62 

Sarepta, 47 

Sassanides, the, 10 

Satni, tale of, 182 

Satni-Khâmoîs, 183, 184, 185, 187, 

188 
Schaefer, Heinrich, 171, 175, 205, 

207, 278 
Schiaparelli, 12 
Sebakh, 36, 63 
Semempses, 203, 204 
Senoussi, 249 
Serapeum, 299 
Service des Antiquités, 299 
Servius Tullius, 62 
Sesôchris, 203 
Set, 130 
Setertas, 251 
Sethe, 164 
Sethos, 170 
Setnakhîti, 215 
Setouî I, 41, 291 
Set-Typhon, 141, 200 
Shamash, 149 
Shardanes guards, 91 
Shepherd Kings, the, 37, 170, 191, 

192 
Shomsou Horou, 206 
Shopsisouphtah, 154 
Shou, 199, 252 
Shounem, 45 
Siamonou, 100 
Sicily, 204 

Sidi-Ahmed-El-Bedaouî, 36 
Sidon, 6, 47 
Simyra, 47 
Sinai, 125 
Sinmouballît, 204 
Si-Osiri, 183, 185 
Siouah, 253 
Siout, 29, 208, 219 
Sippara, 44 

Sîtamanou, Princess, 244, 245 
Sitou, Prince of, 1 5 
Smith, Dr. Elliot, 297 
Smith, Lindon, 246 
Snofrouî, 125, 126, 152 
Sokari, the scribe, 151 
Sokaris, 61, 124 
Sokhît, 132, 134 



Somali, the, 49 

Somaliland, 55, 76, 77 , 98 

Soudan, the, 13, 211 

Soutkhou, 93 

Spiegelberg, 125, 156 

Stabl-Antar, 208 

SteindorrT, S., 249, 251 

Strabo, 86 

Susa, 1, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11 

Syene, 13, 98 

Syria, 2, 4, 5, 42, 44, 48, 49, 51, 55, 

68,69,73, 93, 95, 96, 116,211, 

218, 222, 250, 300 

Taanak, 45, 47, 94 

Tablets of devotion, 120 

Tafnouît, 252 

Tahonou, 93 

Tanis, 85, 219 

Tantah, 36 

Taouosrît, Queen, 287 

Teharkou, 251 

Tell-Bastah, 34, 35, 36 

Tell-Djezer, 96 

Tell El-Amarna, 63 

Teti, 100, 1 01 

Teti, pyramid of, 299 

Thebaid, the, 219 

Thebes, 4, 34, 35, 50, 64, 65, 66, 70, 
7i, 72, 73, 79, 86, 92, 103, 129, 
180, 181, 189, 190, 193, 208, 
215, 216, 220, 221, 222, 241, 
264, 272, 273, 277, 288, 291, 
297 

Thebes, tombs of, 22-32, 42, 70 

Thiersch, 278 

Thinis, 124, 126 

Thmuis, 261 

Thot, 105, 119, 184, 186, 213 

Thot (month of), 129, 132, 133 

Thoutiî, 50, 153, 285 

Thoutmôsis, 155 

Thoutmôsis I, 41, 76, 80, 83 

Thoutmôsis II, 76 

Thoutmôsis III, 29, 41, 49, 50, 51, 
55, 94, 100, 152, 170, 189, 273, 
275 

Thoutmôsis IV, 241, 244 

Tiberius, 88 

Tikanou, the, 31 

Timihou, the, 17 

Tiouâqen, 170 



INDEX 



315 



Tîyi, 65, 241, 244 
Tîyi, tomb of Queen, 291-298 
Tmaî-el-Amdîd, 285 
Tôbi, 131, 132 
Tonoutir, 77, 78 
Touîyou, Queen, 244, 295 
Toukh-el-Garmous, 260, 285 
Touloun, mosques of, 280 
Tounah, 208 
Tourah, 191 
Toutanoukhamanou, 72 
Triacontaschene, 87 
Triptolemus, 57 
Typhon, 200, 201, 238 
Tyre, 6, 47, 48 
Tyrsenes, 51 
Tytus, R. de P., 221 



Ur,44 

Valerianus, 102 

Valley of the Kings, 22, 247, 291 

Varius Marcellus, 107 

Vigna Saccocci, the, 107 

Virgil, 84, 168 

Wady Toumîlât, 35 
Weidenbach, 255 
Weigall, Mr., 246 



Zeilah, Bay of, 77 

Zeus, 57 

Ziggouraiy the Chaldaean, 280 



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